


Shots

by cocoacremeandgays



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Clairvoyance, Dave is psychic, Dave's pretty much just a moody teenager, Depression, Dreams, Evil Teenage Moodswings, Ghosts, In which Dave says Boo on a multitude of occasions, Long Monologue-Esque rants, Maybe I should just name the story boo, More Tags Will Be Added as the Story Goes On, Multi, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Mediums, Referenced/Implied Murder, Referenced/Mentioned Medication, Referenced/Mentioned Mental Health Facility, Referenced/Mentioned Therapy, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia-type disorder, Spirits, Spooky Hauntings, Uncontrollable Psychic Abilities, Visions, pesterlogs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6272173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocoacremeandgays/pseuds/cocoacremeandgays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your bro wants to say hi." </p><p>That was the only time you had ever seen Bro cry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The One Where Dave is a Psychic Medium

**Author's Note:**

> I literally don't know where this idea came from. It's kinda adorable, though, so I'm proud of myself.

The thing about being a psychic medium, is that it isn't forced. It isn't by choice. It's not voluntary- if you could control it, you would. Truly, honestly. It's always embarrassing for more than just you when some deceased family member comes out of nowhere, ushering you towards some person you've never even laid eyes on before.

  
The worst feeling is bringing someone to tears, because you've mentioned someone who they haven't yet gotten over the death of, and they don't quite want to hear it. But this often couples with the best feeling, also bringing someone to tears, though for a different reason. It always feels satisfying when they thank you for saying something, that they really needed it, that they weren't a believer before, but they are now.

  
You wouldn't be a believer if you didn't have first hand experience, either.

  
It's always awkward, of course, walking over to someone and asking them if they have a deceased {enter family member or friend here}, and if they say yes, you go on to say that they need to get a message across. Half of the time, the spirit speaks and ushers you on so quickly that you can't even go on to introduce yourself. You can't count how many times someone has given you what you've now named "The Look", in which one of their brows raise and the corners of their mouth are pulled taut in a disbelieving expression.

  
You have had this "ability" for as long as you can remember, ever since you were crawling around on the ground trying to eat stray puppet fluff and to gnaw on pieces of metal and fabric rolls. Your teething toy was a smuppet your bro had made that was about the size of your tiny little baby arm.

  
You remember this one time, when you were about three, when you were watching Bro as he lay on his stomach on the floor. You held a blanket, pulled tight in both hands, and you were going to drape it over him for some reason or another. You don't remember why, but you think it might have been because of some weird game your infant mind thought of.

  
Whatever the reason, you remember suddenly stopping all movement, and staring right in front of Bro, towards the couch, where some guy was sitting. You remember exactly how he looked, with hair that was well kept and slicked over to the side- parted to the left. They wore a suit, of what color you can't quite recall, and they had a smirk that seemed oddly familial. Their right leg was crossed over their left, left arm draped over the arm of the couch, while their right was draped across the back edge of the couch.  
Their mouth moved, you remember, and while you didn't actually hear anything, you just _knew_. You just...  _understood,_ what he was trying to tell you.

  
You had quickly nudged Bro in the side with your foot, dropping the blanket with one of your hands, and letting the blanket fall down by your side.

  
"What?" Bro grunted, pushing himself up on his forearms and giving you a look behind his shades. He looked confused, and half asleep- you could tell even through his pointed anime shades.

  
"Your bro wants to say hi." You had answered, glancing back towards the person on the couch. They hadn't introduced themselves, really, but you just knew who he was. Not on a personal level, more of an informational level.

  
"What?" Bro had repeated, giving you the most incredulous look he could muster. He looked shocked, giving you "The Look", one brow furrowed and mouth pulled taut.

  
"Your bro wants to say hi. He's sitting on the couch, and he wants you to know that it wasn't your fault, and that you were always a cool little dude, even if you were an asshole sometimes." Bro had sat up by then, his face now almost level with your own. He didn't say anything, so you decided to continue. You remember feeling calm, because you trusted the man on the couch. "He said he didn't mean to die like that, it was a completely ironic accident that had no connection to voluntary extravagance and shit like that.

  
"Oh, and he says happy birthday, and that he's sorry he missed your sixteenth birthday, and that he never forgot your birthday, and he hid all of your presents in the attic, for you to find, because he knew you were intelligent enough to find them on your own eventually.

  
"He also wants me to tell you that he loves you and misses you and he was trying to make a movie dedicated to you, but the god damn editors and producers that worked with him were stubborn ass-hats, and they wouldn't let him.

  
"He says that he's real glad you had a kid and he never hated you for being a homosexual, because, no homo, but he loves you unconditionally anyway, and his bro was pretty gay so he can't really hate you for swingin' that way.

  
"He also says that you should make a rap about that, even though he knows you kinda dropped rapping after you had Dave- uh, me- but he says you should try to make a rap. Oh, wait, and he says something about Sawtooth and Squarewave, and rapbots and Brobots and Lil' Hal, but I don't know what it is because he's speaking way too fast."  
You had finally summed up your monologue, and afterwards, Bro had been speechless.

  
That was the only time you had ever seen Bro cry.

  
You had given many messages since then. To random people off the street at random moments, to acquaintances and peers in school, and even over the internet.

  
You remember when an old guy that had been sitting in your room for a few hours, told you that you needed to message his granddaughter. Somehow, you just knew her pesterchum. He kept urging you, but not too fast, because he seemed to understand that you were beginning to get overwhelmed with his presence and already present urging.

  
It took you a few minutes to search up the correct chumhandle, and it would have taken a shorter amount of time, if you hadn't have been shaking so damn much. Your first conversation took forever to explain, with you starting it off with how her grandfather was telling you that he had a message for her. She was pretty accepting, if not a bit reluctant at first, and even delved in to ask more questions ("how is he?" "gosh, that's so cool!!" "is there a heaven, then?" "i miss him a lot, this is really what i need!" "can you tell him i'm sorry?").

  
That was a great start to a beautifully bloomed out friendship.

  
So, yeah, it really is hard to control any of the spirit stuff, especially when the spirits are always so insistent. You can hardly go outside anymore, without confronting someone about a dead relative with a message. Sometimes, they walk away, other times, they're upset and tell you to fuck off. Still others, they thank you.

  
You are now a seventeen year old, and you are just about to finish through with your junior year in high school. You had finished your homework for the rest of the day a few minutes ago, and had decided to do some grocery shopping. Preferably for more than just frozen pizzas, T.V dinners and hot pockets, because you've had all of those for the past three weeks, and you feel nauseous at the thought of taking another bite out of any of those aforementioned foods.

  
It's not until you're halfway through with your shopping that some spirit finally gets you to give in. He's been standing beside you, following you, smoking his pipe and just... _waiting_. It's actually kind of creepy, and he just won't let up. When you look at him- and you mean straight at him, not just a passing glance-, he gives you this oddly comforting smile, and pulls the pipe from his mouth, smoke that isn't really there in the first place slowly disappearing into the air and mixing with dust particles. His free hand is brought up towards his face, and he wags a finger slightly to the left, the smile on his mouth growing more.

  
You glance to where he's gesturing, and see a boy, seemingly about your age, and he's looking at the back of a meat package with intensity that rivals this man-ghost's persistence. Instantly, the word 'father' comes into your mind, and you know that, even though you just wanted a nice, quiet day, you need to confront this boy about his dad. His dad has a message, anyway, and who are you to deny either of them of the possible satisfaction?

  
Abandoning your cart in the noodle section, you step quickly over to the boy, and tap his shoulder, your breathing picking up with anticipation (was that creepy, no that wasn't creepy, it definitely wasn't, if it was it wasn't your fault). The boy turns to face you.

  
His eyes are a bright, breathtaking hue of blue that would set the purest of oceanic tones to shame, and they hold an innocence that you don't see very much anymore. He wears rectangular, sharp glasses that actually really suit him, though he looks like a bit of a dork. His hair is dark brown, and it could be mistaken for black if you were just chancing a glance. But with you being this close, it's easy to see it's just a really dark brown.

  
"Hi, sorry, uh," You breathe out, suddenly unsure of how to phrase this, "Your- do you have a deceased relative? A dad? He's relatively recently deceased, and the name James is coming to mind. Is James your father's name?" The boy blinks, his eyes widening a slight amount.

  
"Yeah, my dad died a few years ago. His name was James." He confirms, quirking a brow, and his lips pull taut. Shit, that look. The fucking look. "Why?"

  
"Right, sorry, it's probably really weird for someone to come up and just randomly talk to you about this." You take a deep breath before continuing. "My name's Dave Strider, I'm a psychic medium, which I know that you're probably not a believer, but I am, really. Trust me. Hell, I wouldn't be a believer if I didn't have first hand experience either.

  
"Anyway, your dad wants me to insist over and over again that he is really proud of you, like, wow, he's just that proud. Also, he says happy early birthday? Um, the number four hundred and thirteen is coming to mind, shit," you take a breather, before continuing quicker, "no, no, four thirteen, April thirteenth? Yeah. April thirteenth, 2016. He says again that he's super proud of you, and... shit, why is Betty Crocker coming to mind? Is there a link there?"

  
He seems shocked beyond belief, mouth slightly agape as he gives you an incredulous look. It reminds you of the look Bro gave you. "Y-Yeah, my  My dad was an avid fan of Betty Crocker..."

  
"Shit, cakes, um," Snapping your fingers in realization, your mouth feels like it's running a million miles a minute, you're speaking without meaning to. "Your dad is holding out a birthday cake- Blue, blue, is blue your favorite color? He's showing me a little tiny monster- wait, hold up, no, little monsters plural- Oh, the movie, a poster, Little Monsters. Does that hold significance?"

  
"He gave me a Little Monsters poster on my thirteenth birthday! How did you...?"

  
"I'm psychic, it's technically not my doing. It's your dad, tellin' me about all of this. Again, he says he's really proud, and he loves you. Like, a lot. Sorry again about all of this, I know it's probably pretty damn weird for some stranger to walk up to you and spout of shit about your dead dad." You choke out a laugh, shaking your head as well.

  
"No, I- actually, I really appreciate it." He says. "My name's John, by the way. John-"

  
"Egbert?"

  
"Ah! That's kind of creepy!" He exclaims, giving off a nervous laugh. You see the beginnings of tears in his eyes, and you're not sure if that's a good thing, or a bad thing.

  
"Yeah, I freak myself out sometimes, too." You feel like you could talk with this John person forever. You feel drawn to him, and you're not sure if that's a psychic thing, or a spiritual thing, or maybe an emotional thing. Reluctantly, you check the time on your watch. Damn, you need to get going back to the apartment, or Bro's gonna have your ass for not telling you where you went. "I gotta go. See you around, John." Your wave is small, and then you've turned on your heel and head back towards your cart, which is still right where you left it.

Ah, you can always rely on the noodles to keep an eye on your shit.

  
"Wait, Dave!" You stop dead in your tracks. You look over your shoulder.

  
"Thanks, like, a whole bunch." John says, smiling brightly. _He has cute teeth._ Holy damn. You never thought you'd think that and actually mean it.

  
"No need to thank me, man." You respond, a small smile growing upon your own features. "I'm just doin' my job."


	2. The One Where Dave Deals with Being a Psychic Medium in Class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You stave off the urge to interrupt the teacher during his lesson, and instead take in the immense grief you feel coming from his girlfriend's spirit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is a little emotional, just a heads up. Not in a "oh no his mom's dead how tragic" sort of way, just a "damn I'm a teenager and cant deal with my emotions" kind of way.  
> So, uh. Yeah. Enjoy!

You arrived home about an hour later, having had been distracted by the soup and frozen foods sections in two fifteen minute intervals on four different occasions (it's not every day that you find a random bag of milk in the soup aisle).

  
Once you had arrived back home, you had spent another twenty minutes trying to figure out where you were supposed to store your sustenance for the next week, considering the fridge was out of order until further notice (a spirit that had taken some major residence inside of the dumb thing, and was making sure to wreck havoc on your daily life), and the cupboards were so full of kinky puppets and broken shitty katanas that they were rendered practically useless. Your closet was also out of the equation, considering something was really starting to smell in there, and you're not sure if that would be because of some mouse which had died, or maybe one of your dead-things-in-a-jar had finally decided it had had enough with its containment and broken out of there like a prisoner with a spoon and two weeks until death row.

  
Eventually, though, you had actually made some progress, and did a bit of cleaning. You emptied out the cupboards (it took you an hour to clean out the cupboards enough to actually make them useful again), cleaned out the blender of Kermit The-Not-So-Alive-Anymore Frog thanks to one of Bro's shoots, and even managed to convince the fridge ghost (apparently his name is Caliborn) to let you store some groceries inside of it with him. You're not expecting him to keep the stuff in there for long, not at first anyways, but you're sure you'll be able to coax him into becoming accustomed to sharing his residence with some bottles and jugs of apple juice, orange soda, and quite the multitudinous array of real-life, actual, one hundred percent legitimate foods such as tomatoes and pickles.

  
You're pretty proud of yourself, actually, with how little you and Bro actually seem to buy real foods (i.e: tomatoes and pickles), and how you had gone out and taken it upon yourself to make a real living, because you definitely understand that you aren't going to have the metabolism of a fucking god when you're twenty seven and living in your own place with an oven that actually works and a microwave that's higher than 800 watts.

  
Sure, actually scrounging up the courage to try and fix the stove and oven up enough to make them usable again is going to be difficult (you haven't seen either of them used since you were really, really little, when Bro used to cook real food with his hot pink "Kiss the Cook" Valentine's Day apron and his matching cooking utensils- speaking of which, you're not sure where he got that stuff, because it seemed like one of the most expensive things in the household that made sense, and all of his friends were cheap and would never get him something like that, not to mention that Bro wouldn't buy it for himself, though he was definitely someone who would do something of that nature "for the ironies" or some shit, because money was tight, even when you were a kid and his puppet business was booming off the charts), and you're not going to pretend that you're actually willing to fix it, because you're not, and you're also not a liar. You're a decent enough guy to admit that.

  
You're also a decent enough guy to admit that you can't cook for shit, and the best thing you can make without fucking it up or setting something on fire is a bowl of cereal, because you've even managed to set chicken strips on fire in the microwave. You still aren't quite sure how you managed to do that, but you do remember the fact that the fire alarm went off and Bro was pissed because he had to use the fire extinguisher, and he doesn't really like to use that thing for some reason.

  
After your thorough cleanings and food escapades, you deem it safe enough to collapse onto the couch and take a chill pill like Bill always seems to need to. A chillax on the futon actually sounds extremely necessary right now. Your head has been bothering you all day- and as common as it is, pleasant it definitely isn't- and you haven't been bothered by Calliope yet (the spirit of a young girl from the 1940's or something), so you're planning on taking full advantage of the situation, calm and collected.

  
You've just hardly gotten comfortable in your draped position on the futon before Bro comes herding in a ton of groceries like they're baby sheep draped over his arms- a ton of fucking _groceries_ , damn it- and suddenly you don't understand why the fuck you went to the grocery store in the first place if he was just going to go ahead and do that him-fucking-self.

  
You let out an overly necessary groan and fall completely limp against the futon. You have run completely dry of fucks to give now, because this is the last time you go shopping for the douche bag known as your Bro. "What now?" Bro grunts, kicking the door shut behind him with a studious air about him. It's more than obvious that he's picked up on your lack of fuck-giving. 

  
"You picked up groceries? Are you kidding me?"

  
"What's so wrong with pickin' up groceries?" Bro's footsteps sound off and punctuate the fact that he, too, simply does not give any fucks at all. He probably doesn't see that you bought groceries today, too. "Got real food. Tomatoes and pickles."

  
You do your best repetitious account of your previous I-Really-Don't-Give-A-Fuck groan at that. The thump of grocery bags hitting the over packed counters in the kitchen area makes you cringe.

  
"What? Seriously, what's up with you today. You like pickles and tomatoes-"

  
"I hate tomatoes, you piece of cow turd." You really don't hate tomatoes, you just hate the fact that Bro bought groceries.

  
"Jesus Christ, kid, maybe tone down the enthusiasm a bit." His sarcasm is dumb. Just like his shades and his stupid had. Stupid, stupid, stupid. "Startin' y'er period or somethin'? Should'a told me to pick up some tampons at Walmart. Didn't know you were PMS-ing already."

  
"The day I bleed out of my hypothetical uterus and vagina is the day that I get diagnosed with a terminal illness and decidedly, and just as promptly, say fuck you to the universe. Which is you. The universe. It is you." You snarl and shove your face harshly into the side of the futon, which is painful because it's reminiscent of doing a face plant straight into a block of wood and not moving afterwards to clutch your painfully throbbing facial tissues.

  
Bro's snort of obvious beguilement makes your face feel all the more painful. "I knew you thought highly of me, but I didn't think you thought _that_ highly of me. I'm flattered, really and truly." He makes you want to scream. He makes you want to bury your face into the cushions of the couch and just let out the most heartfelt, dramatic scream you can manage to tear from your vocal chords.

  
You don't normally feel this angry around Bro, seriously he's one of the coolest guys you know- while he might be aggravating, he's never so aggravating that you want to scream into cushions and fall to the ground in pain (which you want to do right now)-. It's just that he bought groceries the same day that you did, which is not only a waste of money, which stems off as also unnecessary, but he bought tomatoes and fucking pickles, which is _exactly what you bought._

  
"Yo, Dave, what the _fuck_ did you do?" God, _now_ what does Bro need? You swear to god if he's pissed because he just found out that you had cleaned out the kitchen because you went grocery shopping too, you're going to let out your most heartfelt and dramatic scream _right now._

  
Instead, though, you decide to just roll with it and try to cool your shit. "What do you mean?"

  
"There's foodstuffs everywhere. Have a temper tantrum or somethin'? Thought you were over those." As he says this, you hoist yourself up into a sitting position, and send a half-assed glance towards the kitchen. You then proceed to have the most epic double-take you've ever had in your life at what you see.

  
The fridge and cupboard doors are all opened, and the food you bought today is just askew right in the middle of the floor. It's like a fucking pile of grocery items, something you'd have some fucked up heart-to-heart chat with your friend sitting in the middle of. It reminds you a bit of a bird's nest, or something of the sort, just because of the way it's set up.

  
This time you do actually let out your most heartfelt, dramatic scream (which is actually a groan, because you know you'd cause a disturbance and get the cops called on you if you actually screamed), because fucking _dammit,_  Caliborn, stupid fridge ghosts are dumb and stupid and shouldn't exist and it _just keeps fucking happening_. No amount of flipping any of the situations rightways or turnways is going to fix the fact that _fucking fridge ghosts are stuck up pricks._

  
"I'm gonna fucking kill him!" You exclaim, throwing yourself off of the futon in a fit of slightly-blind rage. Bro's bemused silence is something you ignore as you angrily toss everything back into the fridge and cupboards.

  
~*~*~

  
You're used to a lot of things, you'd say. Death isn't something you're very far away from, considering you're constantly in and out of the living world and the world of the dead. They're shadows in your vision, the dead are, more or less, but they're always there nonetheless. So yeah, you're used to death, and tragedy, and sick feelings, or heavy feelings. The coldness in the air wherever you go is something you're also used to. Most people don't feel that, but you'd say you're pretty adapted to notice it.

  
It's sort of like you're one member of a species, which has developed so much in its habitat that natural selection doesn't get to you, and you're equipped to understand and feel more than most people. Maybe that's kind of what happened with you- you're some kind of mutant, and you won't get killed off as easily as everyone else probably will.

  
Yes, you're fine tuned with death, and you have spirit guide hints or whatever-the-fuck, but they don't tell you how you're going to die. You're not overly careful, either, so that's not why you're going to live longer. You don't know if you're going to live longer, actually. You don't know things like that, which is a common mistake people come to the conclusion of when you tell them that you are a psychic medium. They hear the word 'psychic', and instantly think you can see the future.

  
They think you can read minds, maybe, or they think you can move things with your mind, think that you're capable of more than anyone else. Which you technically are, you suppose, but not really. Sure, you can see dead people, and it's like some sort of weird-ass sixth sense replay, but with a seventeen year old blonde kid rather than an eight year old not-so-blonde, or whatever.

  
Anyways, you're accustomed to depressing themes and stuff. You're used to things like despair and misery, and you don't find yourself affected by things like that as much as someone else might be.

  
But as you sit longer, and longer, and longer in physics class, the teacher's lesson no longer teaching you, rather than just tuning into more of a background noise, compared to the absolute...

  
Melancholy you feel in the atmosphere, it's... it's overwhelming. It's causing a deep weight on your shoulders, you feel the energy slowly draining from you, the longer you sit there, and just... the longer you sit and feel, and listen. She says nothing, the ghost, but she sulks about in a corner in the front of the classroom. You're sitting in the front row of seats, with five other people at your table, and you have the sudden urge to cry.

  
You need to speak up soon, and you know that, because this spirit is strong. She's capable of taking control and making you do something you don't want to.

  
_"Tell him it isn't his fault!"_ She finally wails, dragging her hands through her long hair in some useless attempt to drive away the sadness she definitely feels strangled by. It's interesting, because she's someone you haven't noticed before, with her hair dressed cutely in what must have been some sort of bun, previously. Her eyes are blue, and she's a little bit on the short side, but she's womanly. She reminds you of a maid, maybe. She's pretty, and it's a shame to see her so... distraught.

  
You stave off the urge to interrupt the teacher during his lesson, and instead take in the immense grief you feel coming from his girlfriend's spirit.

  
_"Tell him I wasn't thinking straight!"_ Her sobs wreck through you something awful. _"Tell him- tell him I'm sorry! He needs to know I'm sorry! He needs to know that it wasn't his fault! Tell him, please, please, someone, tell him!"_ The lights flicker, though it's so brief that you think you might have been the only one that noticed it at all. No one else seems to even acknowledge anything out of the normalcy of a day in physics class, which you know they wouldn't, but it still feels a bit strange to you, how no one notices like you do.

  
She cries out again, and you can't take it anymore. You need to leave right now, your own eyes threatening to betray you. You shoot your hand up into the air. Normally you wouldn't be so eager, but this is an emergency. You can't handle the distress.

  
Mr. Hussie blinks, "Yes, mister Strider?"

  
"Uh-" You feel the color drain from your face at being on the spot, just barely managing to keep your cool under the pressure. "-I need the bathroom."

  
"All right, make it quick." Mr. Hussie gestures towards the door with the pencil in his hand, and you stand up quickly, leaving your bag under your seat as you rush out of the classroom. You bite back the sick feeling that walking right past the woman so obviously in deep turmoil gives you, and hold yourself together and keep walking, though you want to sink to the floor halfway down the hallway, eyes wide as you feel her following you. You feel her after you, your heartbeat races, you feel like you can't get enough air.

  
When you're almost to the boy's bathroom, you spin around. "What?" It comes out as more of a hiss than you originally intended, though she seems relieved all the same.

  
_"You can see me!"_ She covers her face for a few seconds, rubbing her tears away with her palms.

  
"Yes, I can see you, and you need to go, I can't have you following me-"

  
_"No, no!"_ She exclaims, throwing her hands in the air as if about to go ahead and rest her hands upon your shoulders. _"I need you to convey a message, t-to Andrew, please. I need you to tell him, he has to know. Has to understand. Has to forgive- Needs to move on. Promise you that you'll tell him that it wasn't his fault, that it wasn't him, he didn't have any part in it. I need to know that he is guilt free, before I can move on."_

  
The pain in her eyes, the sheer desperation of her sentences, it hurts you more than you thought pain that wasn't from something physical could. You immediately know that you need to do as told, as you watch her eyes fill with tears, and her cheeks flush with a red that pains you further. She's such a nice lady, you can tell, and she doesn't deserve to hurt this way.

  
_"Please..."_ She begs you going so far as to press her hands together as if praying, and then lace her fingers together. Her next sob is punctuated by her almost falling to her knees, shaking her head in somber recognition that she may have just come to a loss. You need to speak now, or forever hold your peace, but you know that you can't hold your peace. This is one wedding that can't happen.

  
All wedding analogies aside, you do eventually break the upsetting silence. "I'll do it." You choke, and it sounds about as uncool as you feel. "I-I'll do it."

  
She looks so relieved, her eyes softening with more tears which fall to the ground and yet make no sound, silent raindrops as they aren't technically real. _"Thank you so much."_ She smiles, her breath shaky in sobs that are short and like gentle breaths rather than sorrow filled sounds. _"Thank you so... so, so so so much."_

  
You take a moment to wonder why you, of all people, were chosen to deal with the whole psychic medium business. For the first time in four years, you feel rather lonely.


	3. The One Where Dave Conveys a Message to his Physics Teacher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Where's the horse?" Mr. Hussie smiles at you, as if he knows something that you don't, which he more than likely does. It chills you to the bone, and you can't help but question why he's always asking for horses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is a little cruddy, but oh well. It's shorter, definitely, and I promise I'll try to lengthen them from here on out. It's a bit heavier on the dialogue this time.  
> Enjoy!

It takes you twenty, embarrassingly long minutes to compose yourself enough to feel even close to comfortable walking back into class, and by then the bell for the end of fourth period has rung and you know that all the kids are going to think you got sick or something. Maybe you were so tired that you passed out in the middle of taking a grand piss. You can see it now: "Coolkid Takes the Unwilling Plunge Into Certain Demise While Attempting to Have a Normal, Every Day Piss". The school's newspaper will be all over that, the story will go viral. Hide your kids, hide your significant others, because hot damn if you want sir toilet water to come within ten meters of them.

  
You suddenly find that you're highly unamused by those thoughts, and you'd like for them to go away now, please and thank you. Say bye-bye to that train, as it's leaving the station and never returning, with boarded up windows and graffiti on all of the cars. Board if you want, but I warn you it's a long journey to nope-ville where never ending mayhem and nightmares will never see the light of day again. In fact, the majority of percentage of whatever will happen with that train when it leaves votes in favor of it hitting a mountain and exploding into fiery bits, with the flames of hell being the things that ostracize the train from all the other trains.

  
The little engine that could is suddenly not the little engine that could, it is the little engine that cannot- or rather could not- because that little engine has exploded. Boom. Train of thought over.

  
You groan, letting your head fall forward against your locker, the quiet 'crash' noise that emits from the action actually rather deafening to your ears. How brilliant it is that, rather than enjoying your lunch immediately after an incredibly eventful (and not quite in the good way) fourth period, you instead need to convey a message to your physics teacher from his dead girlfriend. You never wanted to get into anyone's personal life, especially your teacher's, for god's sake, but here you are, knee deep in personal-life abyss, with no option of getting out, thank you very much, because getting out would include becoming blind, and you rather enjoy your eyesight, as much of an eyesore as it can be at times.

  
Another groan, and someone apparently feels bad enough to awkwardly pap your shoulder a few times. "It's okay," they say. From their voice, you can tell it's definitely a chick. Either that, or it's some sixteen year old who hasn't hit puberty yet. "We all have bad days. Come find me if you ever wanna, like, talk, or something." You can feel the smile in her voice, which is obnoxious because you're sure that whatever you say to her relating to your apparent "bad day", she definitely won't believe at all.

  
The quiet pat, pat, pat of footsteps (probably those new cream colored flats that seem to be the fad nowadays) that had sounded just immediately behind you indicate that she has left you alone, to wallow in your self pity, and you have never been so grateful.

  
You lift your head away from your locker, your forehead giving a little sting from the relieved pressure, you decide that now is as good a time as ever to actually pull your shit together and at the very least grab your backpack from underneath your chair in the classroom you had abandoned so thoughtlessly just about twenty minutes ago. Mr. Hussie is really gonna hand your ass to you, as quiet as he will probably be about it. As great and humorous of a teacher as he is, he used to be a principle in a different school, so he knows exactly how to go about things like this.

  
"Things like this" as in, "skipping class during bathroom break".

  
Your locker is immediately next to the physics class room, which used to bother you, but it doesn't much anymore. It saves you the trouble of walking half way across campus just to deliver a message, once again, to your physics teacher. There's something about that that you just don't think you'll be able to get over; not anytime soon, at least.

  
Pushing open the door and grabbing your backpack is the easiest part of the whole ordeal, and you're surprised that Mr. Hussie doesn't speak up immediately. He waits for you to approach him, rather than him approach you-- ... yeah, no, you're not surprised, actually. He's silent but deadly. Scary, actually. Terrifying. He has this... air about him, and his aura is so pure that it almost hurts to look at. That's why you avoid looking at him whilst you approach his desk, your silence an insignificant factor. He gets the gist, and looks up from his notebook, the same pencil in his hand.

  
"I see that time really is your element, as you seem to take a lot of it, hmm?" It's not a question. You know that. If you've learned anything from the three years of high school classes and stunningly sarcastic teachers, it's how to discern a rhetorical question from a legitimate answer-seeking inquiry. You say nothing, instead opting to biting the skin on your lips to keep from retorting in a manner you might regret. You're in deep enough shit as it is, you don't want to make a wrong move and risk sinking further into it. "Is there something you need, Dave?"

  
"Uh-" You should really stop leading sentences off with 'uh's, "-You're, uh... You... um..." You give a glance around the room, trying to find her, the girl who needed you to tell Mr. Hussie that it wasn't his fault, whatever it was. Do you really need to tell him now? You should definitely tell him when she's around, just so you know that she's found her way safely into the light.

  
Which sounds incredibly cliche, now that you think about it.

  
Sure enough, you find her sitting in the corner of the physics classroom, giving you this... hopeful look. You know that you need to do it now. There's no getting out of it. "... Your girlfriend wants me to give you a message." There it is, the ball is rolling, there's no stopping it now.

  
Mr. Hussie says nothing, instead, he lets you go on to the next part- actually conveying the message. You look back over to her again, looking for a sign. Something to tell you what to say. She smiles, shakes her head, and you feel overpowered. You know what she wants you to tell him.

  
"She says that it wasn't your fault. She wants you to know that none of it was your fault, you had no part in it. She needs you to let go of your guilt, what was in the past was in the past, and it happened, nothing can change that," a breath in, and you're back at it, "she says she loves you a lot, and she's always been there with you, through every step of the way, and she's also conflicted about the speech you gave at the funeral because she appreciates it, but she knows no one else got it and it was probably confusing to most people.

  
"Oh- uh, on- on a different note, back to the previous one, that is, she says that you have to let go. She knows it's difficult, but it's what she needs, what you need. She needs to know that you forgive yourself, and England-no, English, for what he did. She wasn't thinking straight, it was a thing she didn't mean for. The- the thing that happened.

  
"She says that she's sorry." You finish, and the silence settles over you in one of the most awkward ways that you could ever imagine. How brilliant, you've probably just embarrassed yourself in front of your teacher, who isn't saying anything (to put you down or otherwise) about it. This is the most awkward moment in the history of awkward moments. It deserves a major award, for the awkwardest of all awkward moments. Save your applause, as there is more where that came from, right in the memory banks.  
"Is that so." Mr. Hussie stands up from behind his desk, grabbing the white board's eraser in his left hand and proceeding to erase today's lesson notes. "In that case, where's the horse?"

  
... Horse. Did he just say horse. He asked you about a horse. How are you supposed to know anything about a goddamn horse? You're here talking about his girlfriend, who is obviously deceased, and he's asking you about some horse- whether it be a toy, or an actual, legit horse. What's his deal with horses? You remember one time, one of the first days in his physics class, where you asked him a question and he said, and you quote, "Bring me a horse, and the answer shall be yours."

  
"Well?" He's expecting something, and that something is obviously an answer to his horse antic related question. "Where's the horse?" Mr. Hussie smiles at you, as if he knows something that you don't, which he more than likely does. It chills you to the bone, and you can't help but question why he's always asking for horses.

  
And then, just like that, you know the answer. "Behind the painting in the attic. The one with the rocks in the desert with the cliffs and the bridge in the background."

  
"Mm-hmm." Mr. Hussie hums, setting the eraser back down on the ledge it rests upon, along with the twenty different colored dry erase markers he seems to collect for purposes unbeknownst to you. "Thank you, mister Strider. Ah, and make sure to come see me after school. Can't have you skipping classes in disguise as bathroom breaks now, can we? Unless of course, you had an incident in the bathroom. Slipped on some stray water on the floor, perhaps. It happens."

  
Fucking damn it.

  
You thought that hypothetical thought train crashed into a mountain and would never see the light of day again.


	4. The One Where Dave has a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a spiderweb of cracks, with rainbow tinges and glowing lights surrounding the edges of them. It was beautiful, in a creepy kind of way- but the thing that really caught your attention, was the fact that John was there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE (4/3/16) : 
> 
> Hello! I'll be away and busy for the coming week (Monday [4/4/16] through Friday [4/8/16]- I'll be back by Saturday [4/9/16] at least). I will not be updating stories for that time, though I will be writing out and editing, and rewriting those edits of chapters. However, when I come back, I will go right back to updating when I can, and I will update as much as I can, as I plan to write out the next few chapters to Shots (chapters 5-9, hopefully) and possibly the next two chapters in LYME over the time that I'm away.
> 
> Further more, I'd like to add that if you have any suggestions for what you'd like to see happen in the story, or who you'd like to see introduced next, just leave a comment! I'll read it over, and try to add it in any way it can fit with the story. I enjoy having the readers take part in decisions of some of the events, so that's why I'm adding that option in. :) 
> 
> Also, thank you all so much for your support! I appreciate it dearly. If you ever have a comment on something, constructive criticism especially, go right ahead and send it in!
> 
> Oh! And this chapter is a bit all over the place (at least in my opinion). I tried to make it like that, considering Dave is dreaming throughout the entirety of this chapter, and his mind isn't fully awake and aware enough to string everything together into as coherent-ish intricate thoughts as he would be able to while awake? Did that make sense? Gah, I hope so. Anyway... so if it seems a bit like it's lacking good chapter material, that's why. 
> 
> Also, I wrote this through extreme writer's block, so that might be why, too.
> 
> Alright. Time for the fourth chapter, now. I hope you enjoy Dave's dream. :)

That night, you dream that you're falling.

Which is stereotypical, you know, and you're not quite sure what it means. You've never had any of these "stereotypical" dreams before now. You've never gone to school in a dream only to find you're ass naked, and you've never had a falling dream. You hardly fall in your dreams at all, actually. You feel like you're floating most of the time, when you're dreaming, and you have an odd susceptibility to have lucid dreams, or nightmares, but you never fall.

This could have something to do with the whole medium thing, but that's only a small possibility of chance, right? You're generally not one to jump to conclusions, so that possibility is far out of reach.

All technicalities and hypothetical possibilities aside, that night you dream that you're falling, and that's it. You feel sick to your stomach in the dream, and you feel like you'll never hit the ground. What feels like hours flies by, but you know it's only been a few seconds. Logically it would only be a few seconds.

Then, just before you're about to hit whatever makes up the dream-ground, you stop. Gravity seems to shift, and the next thing you know, you're staring at what you would have hit (if you were to have continued to fall), which seems like a large body of water. You feel even further sick to your stomach, which might have something to do with the fact that you're floating horizontally, 100% parallel to this large body of water, in the air.

You suddenly have an odd feeling. A feeling that this is way too real to be a dream: which makes no sense, because of course it's a dream, you fell asleep, not like you did any ritual for a fucked up lucid dream teleportation thingy.

What's that called? Astral projection? An out-of-body experience?

This better not be any of those, you're really not willing to _"embrace your psychicness"_ right now. You just want to sleep. Nice, dreamless sleep, without any dreamland experiences, thank you very fucking much. You were tired as fuck after today, in which you gave your teacher a "reading": you hope to never have to do that again, that was a weird-ass experience.

So is this, you note as you watch the seemingly-large-body-of-water slowly become more and more transparent. Soon enough, it's as if you're looking through a mirror, or a very, very thin layer of glass. The latter seems to fit better, so you're going to go with that.

On the other side of this very thin layer of glass, is... you don't know how to describe it, it's... It was light, light blue, almost white or ivory in color, but it was blue. It seemed cold, the "unable-to-be-touched-without-feeling-immense-pain" kind of cold. Everything past the thin layer of glass seemed immensely thin, and dainty. What seemed to be the sky in this other realm, had countless cracks in it- as if someone had taken a giant hammer against a pane of glass, and hit it just enough so it cracked, but it didn't break.

It was a spiderweb of cracks, with rainbow tinges and glowing lights surrounding the edges of them. It was beautiful, in a creepy kind of way- but the thing that really caught your attention, was the fact that John was there.

John, the kid who you had met in the grocery store the other day, was standing in the center of this opposite realm, with all of the glowing lights, and large cracked skies. He wore the same thing that he was wearing in the grocery store, so you instantly knew that this was definitely just a... just a fucked up dream. He'd be wearing something else if it was some out-of-body experience, right? That's how these things work, right?

"John." You say, and you're not sure why. You don't want to interrupt him, you want to see what he does, if he does anything. As of now, he was just staring up towards the sky, back towards you, as if he was waiting for something. Something was going to happen, you felt, something really, really bad was going to happen. "John?" You repeat, and when he doesn't seem to hear you, you find yourself oddly relieved about it.

There's a low rumble coming from the other side now, and you can see a very, very subtle shake in the ground. The sky cracks more, a large snap! accompanying it. Then, it stops- particles of some glowing, crystal-like substance slowly falls from the cracks in the sky, like a rainbow snow. A few of the specks fall into John's hair, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's still entranced. The bad feeling comes back, but this time it's incredibly strong. It's all you can do to keep from screaming out to John, to get him to come closer to the thing barrier of glass between the two of you, separating your realm from the other realm.

"John," you repeat for the third time, trying desperately to move your arms out in front of you, to touch the barrier. It seems that your attempts to keep yourself from calling out to John again were futile. How disappointing. Dream you has no boundaries. "John!" You say louder, but the louder you try to shout, the quieter your voice comes out. No, that's not right, you need to get John's attention right now.

"John!" You shout, as loud as you can, and it feels like you're shouting, you can feel it, you are shouting as loud as you possibly can, and yet... your voice doesn't come out at all. There's no sound to your cry. Fuck, this is infuriating! "John!" His name echoes, you can feel it, but you can't hear it. You wonder, for a brief moment, if this is what it's like to go deaf.

Apparently, your dreaming mind has decided that it's a good thing to cause chains to come down from the sky behind you, and entangle your limbs. You're caught- suspended in the air, and you wonder if this is what it's like to be a fly. 'Amazing!' You think with heavy sarcasm. 'Best dream ever! Ten out of ten!'

"John!" You scream again, but there's still no sound. If anything, you can just barely hear yourself whisper out through the dimming lights of the realm behind the glass. You want to scream out something else- anything, you want to be in control again- but it's useless. You can hardly even manage to tear the one thing you've been shouting out for what feels like hours (again, more realistically it's probably only been a few seconds). In a last attempt of effort, your energy thoroughly disappearing from your body, you speak out John's name again. Nothing extravagant this time, no shouting and straining. Just a simple statement of, "John."

You jump in surprise as you can hear yourself, loud and clear, and you no longer feel deafened. Wait, what? So, you can speak, but you can't shout. Since when did that become a rule?

Your gaze lowers, you hang your head in what could easily be determined as shame. You feel weak, and useless in this dreamland, with your arms and legs chained and your torso draped and wrapped incredibly tightly in metal ribbons, which makes no sense to you.

Can ribbons be made out of metal?

Why doesn't this dream feel like a dream?

This is a dream, right?

You glance back at John, and notice that he's transferred positions. He's now standing, pointing at the sky in awe. Well- what you can guess is awe, anyway, as he still has his back towards you, so you can't see his face. 

You trail your own eyes up, towards where he's pointing, and stop.

**_> DAVE: Whisper._ **

You're stunned by the command floating in the sky, complete with punctuation and colons, perfectly created and written within the sky through the cracked glass texture.

Another crack sounds from the sky, the booming sound erupting from it sounds like a clap of thunder, and watching the sky crack is blinding, like an overly bright flash of lightning. It sounds like it's storming, the sky dust sprinkling down over the futuristic, and cold dreamland. John's hair looks as if someone dusted it with artificial snow.

The crack has edited the command in the sky.

**_> DAVE: Whisper!_ **

What the fuck is going on?

And why the fuck does the sky want you to whisper?

You feel like you should make a rap out of this dream, it sounds like major rap material. You're gonna be rolling in dough after this. Damn, you could get used to this. Dream shit is nothing to question, it's like a gift from the gods, jeez.

Another deafening crack, another blinding flash, and the command has been edited again.

_**> DAVE: Whisper!** _

You think now is a good time to whisper. Taking a deep breath is the easy part, actually forming it into a quiet whisper of the word 'John' is more difficult than you'd like to admit. So you won't admit it. You're just going to leave that hanging there until it's awkward, with a wonderful multitude of periods trailing after it, the statement closely being followed by one of your epic memes.

_(It just keeps happening!)_

With a laugh in your chest and a command in the sky urging you further, you press your breath out in a barely audible, "John?"

And you're fucking deafened by how goddamn loud your fucking voice is.

Now your head hurts, which could possibly be an added plus if that were a good thing, which it isn't- and you can't even grip your head and massage your temples to soothe the ache, because you're chained up by the sky in your realm.

It's through squinted eyes that you notice John doesn't seem affected by how loud it was- he notices your speech, though, and he spins on his heel. There's a grin plastered on his face, and you can just imagine his hauntingly adorable voice saying, "Good job!"

John doesn't say good job, though. His vibrant blue eyes shut as his grin widens, and he looks incredibly at peace. You hope to never have to see anyone be that at peace again. It panics you, sets your blood aflame through icy veins, makes you want to vomit. He opens his mouth, and whispers back to you.

You know he's whispered, because of the way his voice sounded, though you're not quite sure how it sounded so close to your ear. It was as if he was immediately behind you. You could practically feel his breath on the back of your neck. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, the back of your head tingles and the shiver runs down your spine with each syllable he speaks.

_"You should wake up, now."_

And you do.


	5. The One Where Dave Misses the Bus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's an intensely difficult struggle to stand up and actually feel relatively steady with your head pounding away like you've got some dream induced hangover. It would be worth some major 4-star material with just how much it fucking hurts. With the pain comes the gentle wave of nausea, which in turn makes you want to stay put, unmoving, in your doorway until you fall asleep- but that's impossible.
> 
> You need water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back and ready to update! (If you guessed me, then you're correct!)  
> I have the next five chapters planned out, and they should all be coming out within the next few weeks. I'm very sorry to have kept you all waiting for so long, I didn't mean to put it off to this late.  
> Hopefully you enjoy this next chapter!  
> Enjoy!

Needless to say, you wake up in a neutrally temperatures warm or cold sweat (you're too out of it to really know which it is)-- whether or not that is from the dream, or from the humid Houston heat is up for debate. Maybe you're sick, coming down with something that one of those assholes at school managed to come down with. Whatever it is, all you know for a fact is that your forehead is sticky and your brain is pounding away in your skull like a drill set to work at a construction site. It's a throb that seems as if it will never go away, a feeling that you feel you'd do much better without. Your head beats with your heart, a constant thump of which is repeated over, and over, and over, in rapid successions. A heavily occurring experience that has you unwilling to move, though you know you have to. Your mouth is dry as a desert, and your throat stings and aches from the dryness of swallowing saliva that doesn't necessarily exist. Yeah, there is no way you are going to be able to fall back to sleep without any water.

You grunt as you sit up, feeling like you've been chained down. It turns out that your blankets had decided to make an unexpected move sometime during the night, and precariously tangle around your limbs. This explains the "chained down" part in your dream rather well, though you're not quite sure how you managed to do such a thing, especially while you were asleep. As far as you knew, people didn't move while they dream. Maybe the feeling of being chained down happened before the dream, and it was just incorporated somehow. The darkness proves this to be difficult to deal with-- your sight is compromised to extreme levels by the dark that is hardly illuminated by the moon and stars just outside your window. Your room could be considered elegant: if the floor were clean enough, and if you weren't still trapped by your bed sheets.

You attempt a disgruntled sigh (which turns out to sound more like a dying cat, with the way your voice cracks into motion when you don't want it to) as you wriggle out from the grip of your covers. A glance at your clock reveals that it's three eighteen in the morning, and you desperately hope that you'll be able to fall back asleep before you need to get up at that ungodly hour in the morning that should be forbidden, in your mind, to catch your bus (6:00 AM is not your favorite time to wake up, and you truly hate being the first stop for the morning bus. You probably wouldn't wake up if your inner clock wasn't so damn good).

It's an intensely difficult struggle to stand up and actually feel relatively steady with your head pounding away like you've got some dream induced hangover. It would be worth some major 4-star material with just how much it fucking hurts. With the pain comes the gentle wave of nausea, which in turn makes you want to stay put, unmoving, in your doorway until you fall asleep- but that's impossible.

You need water.

Honestly, the fact that your throat and mouth is so dry just adds to the unpleasantness of the scenario. The dream had confused you enough, you don't need to start coming down with the flu, or whatever the fuck is wrong with you. Your stomach hurts in a gentle way that makes itself even worse, if possible. It's on the edge of being something that could be intense, but it's not quite there. A feeling that you don't experience much anymore, thanks to the major boost you've had in your immune system in the past four years.

You used to get sick all the time, more so than you think might have been normal. Your immune system was one of the shittier ones back then, but now that you're a bit older, you've developed a better one, thank god. You can't afford to miss as much school as you used to. You came extremely close to being held back because of how many days you missed. You don't remember how old you were, but you remember Bro not letting you stay home, after he got that notice, because he didn't want you being held back.

You're about ninety percent sure that Bro was held back as a kid, even though he's literally one of the smartest people you know. He's got a high IQ, you can tell. He was probably one of those genius kids you hear about on the news all the time, "child has IQ of 130" or something.

You hope he isn't disappointed in you, because you're really not all that smart of a kid. Math is the only real subject in school that you understand, but that's not too surprising. Bro doesn't bring that shit up, though. He's monotone and expressionless all the time. Gives you the heebie-jeebies.

Heebie-Jeebies is a weird expression, you never liked it much. It makes you feel awkward and childish whenever you say it. The words "tummy" and "belly" give you the same awkward, young feeling that you hate. Your mind wanders off from that topic for a few minutes, a loop of thought that hurts you to enjoy feeling lost in, until you come way too close to running straight into a wall. You don't need more pain, not today.

The silence has morphed into something that is threatening you, as you're unused to there being no dead people in your field of vision at any given moment. You hope to see Calliope, maybe, standing in the kitchen. She seems to enjoy the company of the kitchen, like there's a very nice memory in there that she relives every moment she steps foot inside of the room. She's nowhere to be found, though, you note as you enter the kitchen on shaky feet. Why do you feel so awful?

Goddamn, you better not be sick. You haven't gotten sick since you were thirteen-- your fever was so bad you had trouble discerning ghosts from real-alive people. Bro got sick of your constant rambling to no one in particular (for his perspective), and drove you to the hospital. You had been given anti-psychotics and a psyche evaluation the next day. Since you had managed to drop your fever, you were less lethargic. You knew how to answer without sounding like a lunatic.

The doctor seemed a little disappointed, and kept giving you looks the entire day you were in his sight, but otherwise let you leave soon after without a further explanation or question.

There are days where you kind of wish you were just schizophrenic rather than you being a psychic. It's difficult, you know that, but at least medicine can sort of help with the whole "hallucinatory" part of that deal. But no, your head had to fuck you over so you're too accustomed to things around you. Nothing can get rid of the ghosts that you've seen your entire life, even though you really kind of want them to go away. It sucks, you hate feeling crazy.

You hate feeling different.

You're back in your room a few minutes later, mason jar of water in hand. You still feel kind of gross, but at least your throat doesn't really hurt much anymore. You slip into bed after taking another drink of your water, though it's already 4:36, and you suddenly wonder how the hell time skipped so quickly.

You shut your eyes for a few seconds, and when you open them again, it's 8:16. Oh.

_Oh shit._

"Dave, you missed the damn bus." Bro calls, adding a knock on your door.

_Double oh shit._

_This is exactly what you wanted not to happen._

You force yourself up out of bed quickly, nearly jumping out of your goddamn skin when you see Calliope in the corner. Her wavy blonde hair falls just past her chin, and her black headband keeps her bangs in order nicely. She's wearing a green dress, as always-- you don't think ghosts can change clothes (are there ghost clothing shops? Nah, probably not)--, and she smiles at you, her cheeks a rosy red that gives you the distinct feeling of watching over a child.

_"Good morning, David!"_ Calliope exclaims, British accent thick and sing-song, and still she's smiling wider. You don't bother telling her your name isn't "David", like you normally would. "Dave" is not short for "David", "Dave" is not short for anything. "Dave" is just "Dave", and "Dave" is you. You are "Dave". Not "David".  _"Have a good sleep, did you?"_

You ignore her momentarily as you shove on a pair of pants, awkwardly pulling a random shirt out from under your bed in the process. "Yeah, great sleep, ten out of ten. I didn't even need to count sheep, as lonely as that is. Those fluffy bastards keep me more company than a dead guy in a suit, which is a lot of company. So much company, in fact, that I hardly stop to wonder why the hell you didn't come to wake me like you normally do when you know I'm going to be late if you don't. What was the question again? Oh yeah, why didn't you wake me up." The entirety of your monologue accompanies your morning routine, shoving your shades onto your face haphazardly and zipping up your jeans when you realize you haven't done that quite yet. That's kind of important, you don't need people seeing your boxers. Not today.

_"I see you're excitable today!"_ Calliope says. _"I didn't forget about you, though. In fact, I did try to wake you up. You just wouldn't. How stubborn you are, David! Even in your sleep, I must say. So, if you do have the intent on needing to berate something, berate yourself."_

A groan on your exasperated part, and you're out of the room in a flash. You have a feeling today's gonna fucking suck.


	6. The One Where Dave Contemplates Staying Home From School, But Ultimately Doesn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You shift backwards, trying and failing to find purchase, until the small of your back hits something hard, stiff, and angled. Your breathing catches, stops completely, and with wide eyes you spin around so fast that your head is sent reeling as well as your body, searching for the thing that was behind you, because God knows it wasn't human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And again, I am incredibly sorry for the month-long wait. I ended up getting really sick the first two weeks into my promise, so I was unable to pump out any fuel for posting chapters then. And then with tests, homework, and other such personal issues, I (sadly) wasn't able to post, either.  
> And for your kind waiting, I hereby post the longest chapter so far of this story, reaching a whopping 3,561 words, and would be eight pages long if I printed it.  
> I hope this satisfies whatever urge for the psychic medium Dave I have come to eagerly present you with.  
> Have fun!  
> Cheers.

You're about eighty percent sure your glare is intense enough to actually, legitimately murder your brother right now. You honestly wish you were exaggerating (no you don't, let's face it, he's being an asshole right now, he deserves every single little microscopic metro-inch of this hatred that you are radiating straight out of your face holes right now. Face holes being eyes. That made no sense. Moving on).  
  
"Bro, I'm fine-- Mmfph--!" Your protest goes further unheard by the stubborn ears of your older brother, and now you have a stupid fucking thermometer in your mouth, because apparently you look shitty enough for Bro to actually contemplate whether or not you might pass out in the middle of the day. He works two jobs, he can't take the hassle of driving you back from school (even though you can drive, you have proven yourself able to being 100% capable of doing without crashing like an idiot).  
  
"Ya ain't fine, kid. Your ass looks like Death's great grandmother," Bro explains in that stupid, matter-of-fact tone all parents in every stereotypical teenage chick-flick movie use when trying to prove a point and explain something. And hell, if it isn't so annoying. "If you're honestly that sick, like hell you're goin' to school."  
  
"D'at doe'zzn't make any s'then'th," you grumble angrily in return, and it's only now that you realize how hard it is to speak properly with a thermometer in your mouth. "How on earth woul't I look like t'eath'th's'th... death's'ths... death'ds... Death's gran't'mozzer?"  
  
"Just shut up, kid. I'm tryin'a take your temp. Plus the damned thing makes ya sound demented when ya speak." Bro crosses his arms, and for a moment you both sit in complete silence. "Plus I said 'Death's great grandmother', not just the plain old grandmother. Gramma ain't old 'nough."  
  
"A'ww you cawwin' mwe old, Bro?" You ask with a hidden glare from behind your sunglasses. This is, of course, completely and utterly for the ironies. You're not actually glaring-glaring at him, you're just play-glaring at him. Okay, you're kind of glaring-glaring at him, but you're mostly not. You're only glaring-glaring at him so he shuts up. And takes the thermometer out of your mouth. And lets you go to school. He does none of those things.  
  
"I said shut your mouth, kid," Bro reiterates.  
  
"Cuz, if you're cawwin' mwe old, I'm mo'ffin out," You add, thermometer almost falling out of your mouth. You catch it before it falls, though.  
  
"Shh."  
  
"W'ike he'ww I'm th'subshecting my'th'elf to that."  
  
"Dave."  
  
"It hurt'th, Bro."  
  
"Oh my god."  
  
"Your criti'th'i'th'm hurt'th."  
  
"Ya done whinin' yet?"  
  
"Almo'th't."  
  
You fall into a concentrated silence, and the gentle hitch downwards in his facial muscles easily indicates that he's thankful that you've finally shut the hell up. You guess you'd be pretty annoyed if your little bro kept rambling on about how saddened he was by your criticism and choice of words, too. Of course, you would probably just go along on a tangent all of your own, showing your little bro successfully that "two can play at that game, you cheeky motherfucker".  
  
You don't know if that's the greatest idea, because teaching your little bro to swear is probably not the best option (depending on how old he is), even though he's gotta learn at some point, right? You don't think Bro went through that obstacle swift enough with you, swearing like a sailor every chance he got. Then school came along. Needless to say, the teachers weren't too happy with the types of language you had learned as a very young toddler-esque child. Afterwards things changed, yeah, and now both you and Bro look back on that and laugh, because oh hell, the looks on the teacher's faces were hilarious. Totally beats mental hospitals, in the long run, even if you did get detention a lot.  
  
Life lesson learned. Your little bro kid will be the best kid. Absolutely. You will be the best guardian. It soon comes to your realization that this dumb ass thermometer hasn't beeped yet.  
  
"Yo, Bro, i'th thi'th's t'dumb th'termometh'ter broken?"  
  
"It ain't broken."  
  
"You s'thure?"  
  
"It ain't broken."  
  
Another silence. This one longer, more tense. The levels of intensity have shot through the roof. It is broken, the chart has failed once again to hold the weight of the situation on its shoulders, now it risks causing intense awkwardness for everyone involved with the transaction. The stupid transaction has failed to exceed limits for positive occasions, it is time to break out the flares and firecrackers, you're gonna need 'em in order to survive the night in this horrific catastrophe that is the intensity chart which has broken from the 205% purely unsaturated intensity itself.  
  
And finally, finally, the fucking thermometer beeps and you know for a fact that you are cleared to go to school like every other fucking person on this planet does at some point, your point in which is, of course, right now.  
  
"Am I cleared for operation, doc?"  
  
"97.7. You're good," Bro confirms, and steals a glance at his watch. "It's already quarter to one, though. Ya missed lunch."  
  
"Gee," you exasperate. "Wonder who's fault that is."  
  
"I'm tellin' ya, you looked like Death's great grandmother. I wasn't gonna let ya go to school if you felt and were as shitty as you fuckin' looked," Bro set the thermometer down by the sink, probably to wash for later. Since no one ran fevers in your household, though, it probably wouldn't get washed good for another eight years and counting. "And thus, I present you with two options. Only two. Choose a different one and I might just be forced to kill you."  
  
"A'ight," you reply. "Shoot."  
  
Bro gives you this evenly toned and equally as tensed up glare, that looks like every other glare he gives, which looks like his resting face, that you can tell is actually him giving you an incredulous look.   
  
"Okay, I get it, bad expression. How's, 'I'm all ears'?" Bro still seems kind of uneasy, but continues on with what he was saying anyway.  
  
"One, you stay home. Two, you go to school. Which is it?" Now it is inquisitive thinking time.  
  
You hum under your breath, furrowing your brows the slightest bit in thought. What are the pros and cons of each situation? Time for a mental list.  
  
Well, staying home references the need to do homework, but that's a similarity between the two. Going to school would result in the addition of more homework on top of the homework you already have, but staying home would just make you late on those assignments in the long-run, and you'd need to get them tomorrow, along with tomorrow's lessons. You don't have anything to do today, other than P.E, but P.E is stupid and all you're doing is a mile run thanks to your gym teacher Mr. What's his face (names don't matter right now). You could sleep more if you stay home, which is good, keeping your energy up. But then again, if you sleep too much it decreases your lifespan and your lifespan is probably already fucked as it is. But sleep is so great, and not to mention you actually have food in your house this week, thanks to the duo-shopping trips you managed to coordinate unintentionally with Bro on the same day of the same week (damn, ain't that coincidence to the max), so you could make yourself a lunch, and eat. But you could also still do that quickly and go to school, get your assignments, and then come home and do them. But if you were to do that then you'd have hardly enough time to go through with your normal classes and also get the lessons you missed out on earlier in the day. But if you stayed home today, and went to school tomorrow, odds are you'd be able to just get the lessons you missed today tomorrow during work period during that same hour with those teachers. But if you did that you might not be able to have the head start on homework that you normally have, which ultimately might make this whole ordeal even more difficult. That's okay, you can just sit back and relax today, do whatever homework you got from this point back, and get what you need to get tomorrow, and just credit most of your evening to finishing assignments and projects and papers and--  
  
Yeah, no, you're just going to stay home.  
  
Bro gives you an inquisitive look, like he can physically see the cogs turning on over in your head as you work through this incredibly sensitive case of friend or foe, man-against-man-- no, man against himself. Whoa, shit, you should be a short-story writer, you'd be the greatest author ever.  
  
"I'm gonna-" the suspicious and unnerved feeling in the air sends you reeling for something to grip on to, the cold breath on the back of your neck chilling you to the bone in a one-way journey to mars and fucking back over the course of nine years. You shudder, hair on the back of your neck raising, and your muscles itching in a fight-or-flight response. You can feel the intensity of whatever the hell is behind you, gripping your heart and clenching it tightly with a fear unknown to you since you were too young to understand that this is not going to go away.  
  
You shift backwards, trying and failing to find purchase, until the small of your back hits something hard, stiff, and angled. Your breathing catches, stops completely, and with wide eyes you spin around so fast that your head is sent reeling as well as your body, searching for the thing that was behind you, because God knows it wasn't human.  
All you find before you, though, is the angled wooden backing to the futon.  
  
"You okay, kid?" Bro finally speaks, and when he does, you feel the itch and burn and final fade out of the spark of electricity that had shot through you so strongly before. Your heart thrums deeply in your chest, so hard it hurts, so hard you can hear it, loud and clear, in your ears. You swallow sharply and draw in a deep, long breath, which continue to come shallow, shaky, and quick afterwards. Though you've calmed down enough to recognize that the odds of that being your imagination were incredibly high in those regards, you haven't come to honestly grip the fact that you are okay quite yet.  
  
"I-" Your eyes search for anything, anything at all, that would cause what you felt before to be felt, logically, but you find nothing. Nothing to purchase on, nothing to stand on, nothing to hold your weight in a conclusion solid enough to sustain you and your reasoning, piling miles upon miles of weight upon that shelf until it collapses, which this theory shouldn't do, that's not what we do, Dave.   
  
This isn't what you do.  
  
"I'm gonna go to school. Right the fuck now."  
  
~*~*~  
  
Running a hand through your hair as you trek through the hallways of your school building is the easy part of your day. The hard part is facing the thickening crowds of people to get to the office and check yourself in. Thankfully, you aren't nearly as bloody terrified as you had been just twenty minutes previous, and you take that in stride as you step casually between people and their backpacks, heavy with books and papers and other useless shit.  
  
You're pretty sure a few people stop you on your way to the office, or at least try to, because you heard your name called through the hallways quite a few times. Even though this school has a good five hundred people roaming its hallways, you think you're the only "Dave". Every other potential "Dave" is actually a "David", which you have never and will never go by in the history of ever.  
  
Because that's not your name.  
  
Of course, this quite literal calling of names could also potentially be something completely different, something either of "David"s friend's nicknames for him, or a bunch of spirits calling your damn name to get you to turn around, look at them, pay attention.  
  
The black cat you see wearing a tuxedo costume, following rapidly after a short, blonde girl with a purple headband and skirt, only spurs you on to get to the office faster.  
  
You're pretty sure you've seen her around before, her name is Rain, or Roxy, or something like that, but you've never seen her bring her cat, and especially not in a tuxedo costume. Hell, you didn't even know she had a cat, you've only spoken to her once, in sparing detail, when you both had to read your speeches out to the whole school during graduation freshman year. You complimented her's, she complimented your own, it was a pretty fairly mutual ordeal, you'd say.  
  
So, long story short, this is more than a first. And from the fact that pets aren't allowed on school grounds, and no one is hounding her for it, and no one is saying, "Aw, cute cat! What's his name?", you'd say it's due to one of these two options:  
  
One: You missed some big thing this morning, and this chick suddenly got permission to bring in her cat for some reason, and everyone has already seen this cat around and pet him and all that shit.  
  
Or, two: The cat is dead, and this chick has no idea that a dead cat in a tuxedo is following her around like a lost puppy, happy, content, and cheeky.  
  
You're instantly relieved when you find yourself safely seated inside of the office, humming contently and waiting for the secretary guy to be done with his overly intense conversation within a group of other officials around the school. From what you hear, though, it's less about important business and more about hats and coat racks, though they address the reinstated "issue" as if it is very important business. You don't question them, though you do want to get to class already.  
  
You've been seated for two minutes, maybe less, when the door opens, and someone walks in, sitting compliantly in the chair next to your own. Though this is a big school, the office only has a select few chairs. One for the secretary, two for the students. It's a pretty big room, too, which is mostly taken up by desk space. It's a pretty tight fit, so you can't be blamed for sneaking a glance over to whoever has decided that their need for the office is just as great as your own, and when you see who it is, you find yourself increasingly stumped.  
  
It's Riley, and her kitten friend.  
  
Her dark purple lipstick is actually rather nice on her, and purple really seems to be her color of choice. Her eyes are definitely the same shade, a striking light lilac version of the color, that seem misty and wise beyond seventeen years of age, at the most. With features soft and rather pretty, she's definitely one of the more beautiful girls in the school.  
  
It's not too long before you find yourself staring, subtly through your shades. Even so, though, it's as if she feels your gaze on her. She glances your way as well, and as her eyes graze over your own features, she gives you a smile, one of recognition and politeness. Oh wow.  
  
Rene's cat seems to find this an opportune moment to hop gracefully into her lap, and he curls up in dignified rest. She doesn't seem to notice this, though, and you wonder if she's just that used to her cat jumping up onto her lap. You wouldn't know how commonplace it was, you've never had a cat, or had a long-term friend that had a cat.  
  
Deciding to be a suave bastard, you take a leap.  
  
"So, Rita-"  
  
"Rose," She corrects you. Shit. Of course she's named after a flower.  
  
"Rose," you correct yourself immediately. "So, Rose, what's your cat's name?" You add the gesture of nodding your head towards her lap, gently, though, as to not be too direct. That made no sense. Moving on.  
  
Her face tightens a bit, a bemused expression upon her face and clinging to her eyes, which shout out to you that she more than likely doesn't understand what you're referencing. With a reserved, "What cat?" She shifts, and crosses one leg over the other. Her thigh fazes right through the cat's tail, and as soon as that happens, he mews and leaps to your own lap.   
  
The sensation is weird, tingly, and incredibly palpable. He feels real, yeah, but it's a... fake type of real. Like Reality told Imagination, "Dude, I need to take a break, you take over," and Imagination was all like, "Oh shit man, how do I do Reality," and he tried, but he failed, and it turned into a weird... bubbly feeling.  
  
You're startled, however, and make a soft clicking noise with your tongue when the cat starts to nibble on your sweatshirt. You completely forget that he isn't alive, and no one else can see him, and utter, "Not for cats," under your breath. With a little sigh, he settles down and lays lazily in your lap, purring in a strange, echo-ey sort of way. You trail your fingers into the soft, sizzle-y fur and rub gently with the pads of your fingers in little pets. Aw.  
  
Ghost kitten pets.  
  
"Sorry if I seem a bit... erm... taken aback, by your current actions, as I don't quite understand anything that you're doing right now, but I'd like to learn more," oh god and she's smart. You look up at Rose, and she's looking at you, and oh fuck this is kind of all sorts of crazy awkward. "But, um... What are you doing?"  
  
Shit. You probably look completely and utterly insane, petting a dead ghost cat. He mewls in protest when you take your hand away, quickly, and you hum under your breath. "Just um, uh," You try to think of an excuse, and fail so miserably you'd put something else completely and utterly miserable to shame. "Yeah, no, I got nothing. Sorry. Shit. I probably looked completely bonkers right there, but there's an explanation, I swear. One you probably won't actually believe, but it's worth a try, right? Right."  
  
"So, what is that explanation, then?" Rose's brow quirks up, amused.  
  
"I'm a psychic medium, which pretty much means I take 'I see dead people' to a whole new catastrophic level, which is a bad pun, because there's a dead black cat following you everywhere. Well, okay, not everywhere, but everywhere I've seen you around lately, which is for the past ten minutes today, he's been with you. And sometimes it's a bit difficult to discern reality from the ghost world, y'know, sixth sense bull comes with a price, and I thought he was alive, and..." You clear your throat, figuring you've rambled on much too long.  
  
Rose still looks amused as she asks, "So, you're a psychic medium?"  
  
"Yes. Which sounds stupid and crazy, and is stupid and crazy, and you probably don't believe me, but I swear to god I'm tellin' you the truth. I wouldn't be a believer if I didn't have all this first hand experience either, trust me."  
  
"I believe you, don't worry," Rose laughs, shaking her head gently along with it. "I do believe. I have to."  
  
Before you find yourself able to ask her why she quote unquote, "has to" believe in the psychic showbiz, she decides to speak up again. For better choice, as well. You probably would never be able to ask her the question properly. Your throat seems to not be working, and not to mention it's undeniably dry. Is that normal? Probably.  
  
"You see, Dave," Rose states, seeming smug with herself all the while as she speaks. She seems to be rather keen on keeping her information hidden for a while, because she still hasn't told you why she "has to" believe in the psychic showbiz, even though it's awesome that she does believe. For once, someone doesn't think you're absolutely nutters. Maybe she just enjoys the suspense of keeping things hidden for a while, which might make sense. Maybe she's reading your thoughts. Oh, wow, that would be pretty crazy. _Blink if you can read my thoughts._  
  
She blinks, though it's no surprise that she blinked. She's been blinking this whole time, as have you, though more subtly behind your shades.   
  
"I'm psychic, as well." Whoa, shit.  
  
That's freaking epic.  
  
On a random whim of mild entertainment, you decide that it's cool to run the "mind reading" test again, thinking to yourself once more, some random command that no chick in their right mind would shoot down. You'd have to be drunk, high, or stupid to do that.  
  
_Cough three times if you can read my mind.  
  
_ A second or so delay, and Rose brings her hand up to her mouth, taking a deep breath. Her eyes twinkle brightly as she coughs three times, steadily, in a row, and so subtle that no one else in the room would have heard.  
  
Oh  
  
_Oh._  
  
Well _that's_ embarrassing.


	7. The One Where John and Dave Reunite Like in Some Romantic Comedy, But There is Decidedly Less Romance, and an Increase in Cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You watch, intrigued, as Rose speaks to the secretary man, and then exits the office. Her cat, Jaspers, however, lingers around the office for a few seconds more. He scampers over to your leg, rubs himself up against your ankle, and slowly fades.
> 
> ...
> 
> Wait.
> 
> Did you just help a cat cross over?

The initial shock from Rose's reserved and distinguished reaction has you staring at her pretty much incredulously. The embarrassment having long passed, you're left feeling overtly exposed and laid open for someone, such as this person that you may or may not have virtually been complimenting and inadvertently mind-flirting with, to read your thoughts.

"Whoa, okay, hold up," You say, shaking your head to snap yourself out of your bewildered daze. "That's kind of freaky. You're telling me you can read my mind?" Perhaps you were a little bit too flabbergasted by the information, because, last time you checked, you weren't exactly part of the "Normal Norman" group, either-- though you couldn't deny that being able to read someone's mind was something you never honestly thought was possible.

"Well, if I may inquire, what on earth are you alluding to?" Rose asks, eyes shining with a collected glow that seems to give off an air of mischief about her. The flash you catch of her aura out of your peripheral vision is dark, suspiciously so, but you can't say that it's evil or malevolent.

"I'm not alluding to anything, I'm stating the facts. You can't go about being mischievously discreet about your mind-seeing powers, and expect me not to end up catching on," you tell her.

"I can assure you, Dave, that I'm only very good at reading people." Now she's fucking with you, the smirk upon her black-painted lips gives it away just as much as her cheeky tone.

"Yeah, reading people, as in their minds, like an opened book. Fuckin' diary of their thoughts, written out by their subconscious and left coincidentally open out on the bed as you wait for them in their room as they take a mini bathroom break."

"You have it all wrong, actually." Rose perks up when she seems to notice something going on with the group of men gathered around the desk in interested conversation. When you look up, however, all you see is said group of men gathered around the desk in interested conversation. "I don't read people's minds."

Rose is doing that thing, you can tell from her "I'm-not-quite-finished-yet-but-I'm-not-continuing-yet" tone of voice that you seemed to have picked up. This keeps you on the edge of your seat, and you don't know if you find that oddly enticing, or rather frustrating. Nothing seems to be finished with the way she speaks, but at the same time, it has a finality that-

No. Okay. Now you sound like a teenager with a saddening, heart-wrenching children's crush on your best friend, this is gross, cut it out.

And she can read your mind, which is even worse for the fact that you seem to find her rather attractive. Your teenage brain is something you have come to purely dislike.

"I listen to the messages the light gives me," Rose finally continues, and gives you a wink. She says this as if it's something mysterious, to be kept secret, and yet she alludes to the fact that this should clear up any and all confusion.

"So you're a light whisperer." You say.

Rose laughs, her cat mewls, and you jump at the sudden reminder that you have a black cat dressed in a tuxedo lounging casually around in your lap, purring as you had been absent-mindedly petting his fur. "That is one way to put it."

Promptly, Rose stands up and brushes the front of her skirt free of either dirt, or wrinkles. You favor wrinkles, considering this school is pretty cleanly, and you're pretty sure that the principle is germophobic.

"Well, Dave, I'm afraid that it's about time that we bid each other farewell. As much as I enjoy talking with you, it's become apparent that we should head to our final classes, yes?" Rose says, her smile calm. She turns away from you, and starts over to the other side of the desk, where the secretary man has sat back down at one of the computers, and is typing away.

Rose's cat lets out a hearty meow, and leaps rather graciously off of your lap. It suddenly hits you that you haven't learned the name of her cat friend yet, which is the whole reason you really started off this odd conversation in the first place. "Hey, Rose, hold up." You call quietly after her, standing up from your own chair.

Rose turns, gives you a look that tells you that she is listening to you.

"What's the name of your cat, again?"

Rose smiles, eyes shutting gently. You swear you can see her face take on a look of remembrance. "His name was Jaspers."

You watch, intrigued, as Rose speaks to the secretary man, and then exits the office. Her cat, Jaspers, however, lingers around the office for a few seconds more. He scampers over to your leg, rubs himself up against your ankle, and slowly fades.

...

Wait.

Did you just help a cat cross over?

~*~*~

The hallways are silent. So silent, in fact, that it has you brooding over why exactly you came to school in the first place. This is a stupid question, however, considering you know exactly why you came to school. If you had the choice between staying at home, where a shit ton of sharp things, miscellanious objects, and a malevolent spirit (apparently) now takes residence, or going to school for the final two hours where pretty much absolutely nothing happens whatsoever, you think the decided option would end up being pretty goddamn obvious.

But with the silence, comes the ominous feeling. Like you're being watched, or followed, or something else of the like which is completely and utterly totally one hundred percent absurd. An asinine thought. How dare you imagine such a thing. All the teenagers and their respective ghosts have settled down in their final class of the day, whichever class that may be, and that would ensure that no one, not even a residual spirit, is following you, even if it feels like there is.

Even if the spine-chilling breath huffing down the back of your neck reminds you of when you were deciding whether or not to come to school, standing with your back towards the futon casually. Even if the unmistakable chill of one of your dead friends (or not so friends) lingers and seeps through you. Even if the chill is so great, that it makes you feel like you'd be able to see your breath in a fog of vapor just in front of you, if you were to focus hard enough.

You suppose it is kind of your fault for taking that drinking fountain break before heading over to your one and only class of the day, thanks to your dumb brain making you sleep in too late. The fact that there's another, seemingly malevolent and not-so-human entity following you around is more than definitely your fault. You should have just gone to class, like a normal person when they're already way too late would, rather than stopping by the drinking fountain and taking a leisurely sip of the warm water that tastes oddly like a backwash of lemons.

You're still only halfway to your class, and if the time on the clock you just passed is correct, that means that you have less than half an hour of total class time left. That's typically a good thing, but right now, not so much. All you can think of at the moment is how much you don't want to go home, and yet you really do, and yet, at the same time, you really, really don't. If you go home, that would mean certain demise, considering Bro more than likely works a gig tonight, which means you'll be home alone until well into the evening, which means being stalked, one-on-one, by this... thing, that hasn't let you off the hook for most of the day (that you've been awake, that is).  
The only reason you turn around to see who's behind you at this point, is because you could swear to the almighty being above, that some creepy ass motherfucker chuckled right in your ear.

And to hell with having your back to that shit.

You have never been more shocked with what you'd seen standing before you.

John, the guy from the supermarket earlier this week, is about ten feet away from you, staring intently at a schedule that he seems awkwardly engrossed in. As soon as you stop walking, though, he seems to notice something off. He stops walking, as well, and looks up in front of him, right at you. He gives you the biggest, doofiest grin you have ever seen, and waves excitedly over to you.

"Hi Dave!" John exclaims, loud enough for anyone nearby in their classrooms to hear. He seems not to realize just how loud he was, considering he doesn't exactly stop waving, or grinning. What he does stop doing, however, is stopping. He instantly runs towards you, looking way too excited for his own good, and you have to step back to erase the anxiety of him running straight into you. He stops a foot before you, though, and is still looking way too happy.

"Uh-"

"I didn't expect to see you here, wow, what a coincidence!" John's gotten quieter, which is a good thing, though he's being loud enough to portray that he is, in fact, "Super uber duper excited!" Gosh, he reminds you of a puppy in that way.

The creepy feeling you had earlier is still there, but it's less intense.

"I had no idea you went to this school. I just moved here, so, I mean, of course I wouldn't know, but I still find it... kind of funny to have run into you here right away?" A slightly perplexed expression crosses John's face, before it leaves as quickly as it came. It's immediately replaced by a small look of embarrassed worry. "Oh- uh, sorry. I guess I might have freaked you out a little there. From how pale you are, it looks like you've just seen a ghost!"

You give him your best, "Really?" look.

"Oh-- Uh! I... uh, I mean... no pun intended." The blush settling on John's cheeks is literally the funniest thing you've seen in a really long time, and you almost can't help but laugh at just that. He looks so disgruntled and embarrassed about something, though you honestly don't know why. You're also a little surprised that John is acting like you two have been best bros for the majority of your life, though you think you can brush that one off. You think it might be because you gave a reading to John, but if that were the case, than you would literally be the most popular person in Texas, which you most definitely are not.

Besides, John's a cool dude. You don't mind kicking your pseudo-relationship with him off on a happy note.

"You don't talk much." John muses.

"I talk all the time. I'm just flabbergasted by your mad social skills, is all," You say. That came out a little too sarcastic for your liking, but John laughs, so you guess that's fine.

"Oh, man." You have a feeling he says that a lot, with how comfortable he seems to be when he says it. "I'm just super stoked that we... like... y'know. Second meeting chance."

"Second meeting chance indeed. Don't get too excited though, Egbert. I haven't even signed your shoe yet."

"Like you were ever gonna sign my shoe in the first place, dude!"

As if you go through this conversation all the time, you reach into your back pocket and-- Whoa. What the fuck? When did that Sharpie get there? Seriously, you don't even own Sharpies, this is irony to the max. Uh, anyway. You reach into your back pocket and, as if you always knew there was a Sharpie there in the first place, pull it out like the most suave-ass motherfucker in the nation.

The best thing?

Your poker face was intact the entire time.

John gives you a bemused look, and switches it off between the Sharpie and your face, before he starts laughing like that was the best thing since sliced bread. Which, it kind of was, you're not going to lie. When he's finally done laughing, the goof, he freaking snorts.

Yeah, no, that's it. Your resolve is broken. You've flown so far off the handle you're fucking unrecognizable. You're but a star in the solar system, you've flung yourself so far off the handle that you're but a speck in the universe.

You both proceed to laugh like idiots for the rest of the (twenty two minutes and six point two seconds) half hour.


	8. The One Where Dave Rides the Bus Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You supply avid and extraordinary kudos to whatever psychic deities are watching over you, and give Karkat one last look, before you shove him out of the seat.
> 
> "Dave, what the motherfucking shit-sitting ducks are you doing, let me go back to my seat, you blubbering whale co-"
> 
> "No can do, Karks, you're coming with me and we're gonna have fun."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what? I'm back! And with me having come back, this story comes back, too! I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long, my writer's block became insane! But, I'm back, and things are getting into a roll now. :3 Enjoy!

"You weren't on the bus this morning," gruffs Karkat, with his hair a wild mess between his fingers, which trailed, along with his hand, through the unruly situation going on at the top of his head. You have absolutely no idea how he manages to keep it in such a mussed state, but you also have no idea why you would care in the first place. Hair is not your thing, and a few collective seconds on a bus after you scoot past him and plop down into the small nook of space he left by the window can't exactly determine the life or death of your affinity for the topic.

"Good job, Karkles can see." You've known Karkat since you were about thirteen, and your initial relationship is rocky at the best of times. Not only is it rocky, but it's confusing, and you'd be lying if you said that half of your sexual-orientation discovery didn't come from some shared situations between the two of you. You're honestly surprised that he doesn't have one of his famous mental breakdowns whenever he sees you, and even more surprised that he's still your friend, in some weird way. Karkat snorts.

"No fucking shit Einstein, my eyes work just fine in case the fact that I have perfect twenty-twenty vision and a clean mental health record wasn't enough for you. Your determination to the subject of my justification to my sight really displays how much you love and care for me, and I really, truly appreciate the fact that somewhere, in your microscopic American brain, you were able to process the fact that I am not legally. Fucking. Blind."

Yeah, at least you now know that Karkat can still effectively go on about a topic that was situated as some form of overkill about ten sentences ago. You don't even try to add any words of your own in, because you know that he'll just run right over your attempts at speaking with some sort of linguistic bulldozer in the wake of an epiphany. Your attempts will be set aflame and promptly crushed into some sort of child's game Rubix cube, and it will be one of the most painful things since the bread having been sliced, because god knows that bread was conscious and fully alert when that happened. You blame Karkat.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, where the fuck were you before I call total bullshit on the entirety of your existence?" The glare Karkat shoots your way in a hardened manner really gets your blood pumping in anticipation for your own response, but you don't really have an explanation that's all that grand, and you know that Karkat's going to look at you smugly, in that "I-Told-You-So" manner of his that seriously pisses you off. God. You hate his stupid fucking face in a totally platonic way that doesn't even make any sense.

"I saw a ghost." Oh. Spooky. Karkat, however, doesn't seem to appreciate your needlessly fabulous humor, and favors for, instead, shouting in Russian and shoving you at the window. Considering you don't actually know how to speak or understand Russian, you're left in the dark while he chills out and works out the kinks in his reply, or with your reply, depending on how he sifts through the information in the first place. You know that he's gonna be left in the dark for a few more years about the fact that you see dead people, because he was there through the stage where Bro had you in and out of mental institutions like it was some sort of religious necessity, and you were the die-hard believers. The only thing that came out of that was the fact that you were wrongly put on anti-psychotics and diagnosed with some sort of undifferentiated sub-type of schizophrenia.

"Great. Just fucking brilliant. You're off your rocker again, Strider. Off your goddamn rocker." Karkat spits out those final words, and you scoff with your gaze turned out the window in an indecisive manner of speaking. The scenery passing by only limits your expectations to realizing that you're truly categorized in a moving vehicle, of which is stock full of gross sweaty teenage angst. The sophomores are probably the worst. Don't get in the way of the fifteen-to-sixteen year old's. It's honestly depressing to think that you were once a sweaty angst-filled sixteen-year-old who wanted to try way too hard, but ultimately didn't because Bro taught you better than that.

Bro also taught you better than determining your future with what others say, but he doesn't seem to be one to hop off of the train of mainstream, because he let the doctors misdiagnose you with an undifferentiated sub-type of schizophrenia. You aren't schizophrenic, you're psychic, the fucking asshats. Wow, and by wow you mean oh jeez. Oh jeez because, is this what it's like to realize you sound nuts? No wonder people think you're crazy. No matter how accepting any sort of generation might be, there is no way in any of the sun's flames that someone is going to accept the fact that you are a psychic. ("Oh, you're psychic? Well, hot damn, screw medical knowledge and scientific proof, lets go with your totally legitimate explanation instead, because that makes more sense than logic!")

"Hello? Earth to critically mentally unstable hipster?" The suntanned and slightly freckled hand waving in front of your face is actually relatively confusing of a subject to wrap your mind around, and you stare at it for a good few minutes before you realize that those messily cut fingernails which are a little too sharp on the edges belong to Karkat, and he's trying to get your attention for another attempt at the merry-go-round massacre that's going to happen without much prompting. You turn to look at him with a brow raised in your best exasperated look. Karkat snarls, brown eyes narrowing. "Don't give me that look, you insufferable pri-"

You give him a sharp thwack to the back of the head.

"God damn it! Fuck you, Strider, you and your incredible disinclination towards admitting that you're the biggest prick to ever have lived in this world, substantially full to the fucking oceans of pricks, is incredibly annoying- and stop smacking me you ignorant fuckhead of an overtly desperate and seasonally depressed douchecanoe!" Karkat flaps his left hand around his head in hopes of smacking your own, which you've been using to your advantage in smacking the back of his head. The fact that he has his head down and is slouched over a little bit just proves to you that he's got his eyes shut and can't see where you're putting your hand, and it's honestly funny. "You need better things to do with your life other than fucking with the back of my head whenever I suggest the totally obtuse notion that you're the biggest prick to ever take residence on this planet!"

"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today," comes your adamant reply, pulling your hand away from his hair and giving a pretentious smirk. You lean your shoulder back against the window, let your backpack fall between your knees and onto the floor of the bus. "Anyway, I thought you started driving as soon as you turned sixteen, so how would you know if I was or wasn't on the bus this morning?"

Karkat makes a noise that is way too reminiscent to a hiss for it to be ironic or accidental, and he sits up straight, back facing the bus aisle so you can't get at the back of his head. You're tall and pretty lanky, however, so you still could if you tried. He's just been your friend long enough to figure out how to keep you from continuously hitting him on the back of the head in a playful or not playful manner. "Dave, I think that your ego has gotten too big for your head to comprehend anything logical anymore. My car has been in the shop for the past three weeks, because what was meant to be a routine repair that lasted a week, turned into a two week fix up thanks to some guy in a pick up who practically crushed Crab in the parking lot."

Crab is what Karkat calls his car, often times referring to the 2006 Saturn Vue as his "Crabdad". It was strange, but you know better than to question it, as you tried to tease him about it when he first got it and began to talk about it like a person and he flipped his shit. He didn't talk to you for weeks after that, proceeding to have a conniption fit whenever you tried to interact with him. It's hard to think that this happened only just last year during the summer, and the amount that both you and Karkat have changed over the past year is pretty damn outstanding. "Damn, Karkat. Your rap skills have seriously increased since the last time I saw you."

"Oh, yes, my rapping skills have increased immensely irrational increments since last Monday, which is when I saw you last. I cannot believe I was so blind to the fact that I have developed a skill further and far more superior than your own; oh, wait, it seems that I have forgotten the fact that I'm not legally fucking blind, so that statement is already invalid!" Karkat spoke himself into a full circle from previous conversation markers, tossing his hands up into the air as he shouted the sentence. It sounded little more than above speaking level compared to the rest of the insane volume of the bus. "I guess what I'm trying to say is a broad and immediate, prompt-- oh, fuck you!"

The bus lurches forewords in the middle of Karkat's sentence, causing him to exclaim rather sharply something that could either be shot towards you, or the bus, or the bus driver, or the people on the bus. The specifics weren't all that important, in all actuality, but when you look out the window it's no surprise to say that you have made it successfully to your apartment building without any sort of evil demonic entity experiences on the bus. You supply avid and extraordinary kudos to whatever psychic deities are watching over you, and give Karkat one last look, before you shove him out of the seat.

"Dave, what the motherfucking shit-sitting ducks are you doing, let me go back to my seat, you blubbering whale co-"

"No can do, Karks, you're coming with me and we're gonna have fun." Momentarily, you're unaware of exactly what you mean by "fun", but you sure as hell don't mean anything bad. A few kids give you awkward looks, while a few more give you thumbs ups, and a different dorky looking kid with glasses gives you double pistols and a wink. He kind of reminds you of John, but less adorably dorky, and more macho man dorky. You push through the crowd of people's feet in the aisle, while also pushing Karkat ahead in front of you, because if there's one thing that you don't want to happen tonight, it's that you find yourself alone in your apartment at any given moment until terror-inducing entity number one has decided to leave.

"Do you even comprehend how incredibly vile you sound?" Karkat continues his loud-mouthing, stumbling onto the sidewalk as you push him to accompany you off the bus. The bus driver doesn't say anything; she doesn't really pay attention to anyone getting on or off the bus anyway, so the fact that this is so spontaneous really doesn't matter all in all. Besides, you and Karkat are both almost eighteen; sure, Karkat's closer to being eighteen than you are, but that's all the more reason that he can make his own decisions (which goes against what you're pretty much forcing him to do but that's beside the point). You accompany his stumble with a concentrated, calm hop off of the final step of the bus. "I cannot believe you just fucking kidnapped me."

"Yeah, well." You turn your head for a few minutes to watch the bus driver shut the doors to the bus, and drive off; the distinct squeal of a bus along with the smell of exhaust fills the air, and in an odd way it's soothing. You're caught on that thought, eyes taken with the road that once held the large piece of machinery. There's a heaviness in the air, like something happened here. You nudge Karkat ahead, gesturing vaguely towards the doors leading into the apartment building. "The more the merrier."

 

~*~*~

 

Along with a distinct stream of bickering from Karkat and you, there's a solemn heaviness that continues to follow you through the halls of the complex. It doesn't seem to be a shared notice, though, as when you give Karkat your best, "Do you feel that?" look, he simply glared at you and scoffed. He could have misinterpreted your expression, but you still don't think that he really feels anything out of the ordinary. It's probably the medium thing again, which you're seriously starting to get sick of.

As soon as that thought passes your mind, you find yourself standing directly outside your apartment door, staring at the handle and the door in its entirety for a very, very long time.

This door is an asshole.

This wooden opening device of a divider between the hallway, of which you are standing in, and your apartment, which you need to step into, because you need to make sure that Caliborn hasn't fucked up the refrigerator's contents too much, or to make sure that Calliope didn't start up your computer to do whatever it was that she needed to, or for the prime comfort for Karkat.

There's a chill that hangs on to the back of your neck, which has been there ever since the incident this morning, with your shitty ass skipping a majority of your classes by stooping so low as to sleep through way too much of the majority of the morning, after of which Bro decided to keep you later than you would have been if you had just hopped out of bed in the first place, which you technically did, but that's beside the point. The chill is the same one as before, but it's less intense than it was when you felt the presence, of which was undoubtedly evil, after Bro took your temperature.

You swallow thickly, hand moving to your pocket to fish out your keys, but you can't seem to find them. It's not really processing in your head where you might have left or put them, which is strange and slightly unnerving.

"Dave, open the damn door already," Karkat gruffs, easily becoming impatient with your shenanigans. You force away the urge to say it isn't your fault, that some serious shit's about to go down in some way, and wrap your fingers around the key chain you finally discover in your left pocket. A long drawn out movement concludes the action of opening the door, and you find yourself staring down at the floor to keep yourself from being scarred by whatever is in there for at least a little while longer. Karkat says nothing, and for a long time, it's simply silent; you, waiting for something, and Karkat, probably waiting for you to move your ass out of the way so he can get in and set his heavy backpack down on your bedroom floor. Karkat speaks again. "Move, motherfucker."

You look up as you step into your apartment, and notice that it's surprisingly empty of mishap. The food is in the fridge and the cupboards, everything is clean and neat and not in disarray, your laptop is open and blinking on the couch-

Hold the fuck on, you didn't move your laptop to the couch last night, did you?

With an annoyed noise, you drop your backpack to the side of the door and slip over into the living room to pull your laptop into your lap, and scroll through all of the open pages and icons. Apparently, you have three internet tabs open, along with Pesterchum, which has a conversation going with Jade. You haven't been talking with Jade lately, so you feel that you know who messed with your computer. You minimize all of the tabs to find a read.me text, and with a lifted brow, you go to click it and read it-- Karkat slumps beside you and questions what you're doing. "I didn't use my computer recently; I think Callie might have fucked with it."

"You have to be kidding me, Dave. Callie isn't real, she's in your head. That's what schizophrenia is, remember? You're literally a fucking lunatic." Karkat accompanies his statement with a sharp knock on the side of your head. You don't flinch, instead you check out the internet tabs with mild interest.

One is directed to his puppet business, where you can buy puppets, place orders, the whole shebang. You're lost because Callie lives here, she doesn't need a puppet, they're fucking everywhere; besides, what would she need them for?

Another tab is another one of Bro's other websites, where he posts odd and slightly obscure drawings. You have to say, he's a pretty damn good artist, but when you were a kid you didn't understand what these pictures meant, and it was pretty terrifying to suddenly see one of his drawings in such a good art style. You used to tell people that Bro was an artist, and you think that he tried to be once upon a time, but it didn't work out. He took up puppets instead.

The third tab, is an open and unsent e-mail to Bro, and what can be read in the e-mail is strange, and something that you most definitely did not type. It's in red text, and typed out without much punctuation or any capitals, and you realize that Callie was able to completely replicate your cadence over the internet, which isn't too crazy considering Callie's on your Pesterchum a lot. She must have picked it up for this little prank of hers. Even so, the words on the screen are slightly chilling to read over. From the tone of Karkat's voice, he's a little creeped out, too.

"What... the fuck is that supposed to mean?" He speaks, quieter than his usual single-level shout. You're not quite sure why he's the one who's so freaked out right now, because it's honestly super simple. It's still ominous.

"Calliope?" You call, looking around the area. No one responds, but something in the fridge sounds like it shifts, and you suddenly have a very, very bad feeling about Caliborn. He's still locked in the fridge, though, he shouldn't be able to wander very far from it, it seems to be his drawn object. "Caliborn? Did one of you guys do this?"

Again, no one responds. You feel almost...

Lonely.

"Well... What- what about the read.me? Maybe your asshole of a brother decided to pull some major prank on you, or something." Seeming reassured, Karkat pushes your hand away from the mouse and takes it instead, minimizing the internet tab and sifting the cursor over to click on the read.me on your desktop. Karkat pauses as he reads over what's written, and you do, too. It's the exact same thing in the e-mail that was unsent to Bro, but there's also something else. Goosebumps roll a shiver down your spine, and you find yourself stuck, reading the passage of text over, and over, and over again.

bro  
be careful okay something bigs gonna happen  
theres this big bad feeling i got and i have another equally as big and bad feeling that its going to happen to you i dont want you to get hurt so be careful  
theres some sort of lean mean pain-inducing machine after you  
dont be alone for longer than necessary for the next week.  
\- dave motherfucking strider

keep an eye on your bro, dave! :B


	9. The One With the Pesterlog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You asshole!" Karkat storms over from where he had ended up, across the living room and almost to the kitchen. You don't remember him pacing, like, at all, but whatever. You weren't really looking at him in the first place. He points erratically towards your laptop as you set it on the coffee table, and stand up to face him properly. You're taller than him, and it's pretty amusing when Karkat flushes like he forgot you had a good few inches on him. "You weren't even listening to me, were you?"
> 
> "I mean, yeah, I was listening," you respond, shrugging your shoulders. He narrows his eyes and shrugs his own, sharp and mocking, back at you, as if you're going to be offended by his decision to shrug his shoulders as hard and as high as he can in your general direction. "But I was mostly talking to Jade. I just knew that you were having a spaz attack. Anyone within a mile's radius would be able to figure out what you were talking about."
> 
> "Fuck off!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry that this chapter is so terrible. :')  
> My writer's block has been at it again, and I actually meant to have at least five decent chapters done by now, but all I could manage to produce was this single awful one. Again, I am so, so sorry. Please forgive me, as I try to work on chapter 10 and publish it within the next few weeks or so.  
> Cheers!

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 13:04 --

GG: dave!  
GG: daaave!  
GG: davey!  
GG: cmon, i know that you are there!  
GG: daaave!!  
TG: I'm afraid that I'm not Dave, but maybe I could assist?  
GG: oh, hi callie!  
GG: how are you doing??  
TG: I'm fairing quite well, and you?  
GG: great!  
GG: but......  
GG: is dave there?  
GG: i feel like i really have to tell him something!  
TG: Oh, really?  
TG: Like, what?  
GG: i dont know!  
GG: but, something feels weird  
GG: something bad is going to happen  
GG: i saw it in a dream.  
TG: I'm sure it was just a dream.  
GG: no, no!!!  
GG: it was real!  
GG: well, erm, realistic  
GG: but itll come true, i know it!  
GG: please tell him to contact me.  
GG: its very important.  
TG: What do you feel will happen?  
GG: i dont know.  
GG: dave was sad in my dream, though, and i saw a man  
TG: A man?  
GG: a man!!!!  
GG: dressed in all white, and a liiittle bit of black.  
TG: Hmm...  
TG: Anything else?  
GG: there was a hospital  
GG: there was definitely a hospital.  
TG: I see.  
GG: it was bad.  
TG: Maybe I can give him a message?  
GG: oh??  
TG: Yes! Tell me what to tell him, and I will. ^u^  
GG: um......  
GG: ok!!!  
GG: so...  
GG: well  
GG: keep an eye on your bro, dave! :B  
TG: Alright.  
TG: I'll tell him.  


\-- turntechGodhead [TG] is now an idle chum! --  


\-- turntechGodhead [TG] is no longer idle. --  


TG: yo  
TG: jade  
GG: dave!!  
GG: finally, oh my goodness. i was trying to contact you earlier!  
TG: yeah i got that part  
TG: pretty insane how avidly that message was portrayed in its bright green insufferable text  
GG: hehehe!  
GG: ..... did you just call me insufferable?  
TG: anywhosies whats this dream about  
TG: i got the pain-inducing machine part and all that wonderful impartial partial bullshit but i didnt exactly understand any of it in a longer form of speaking  
TG: like okay so bros gonna virtually die or something if i dont keep an eye on him but why  
TG: as in what is even going to happen in the first place  
TG: could be my asshole side talking but none of it was quite avid enough for me to really understand like  
TG: redundantly  
TG: any of it.  
GG: jeez, you are really talking yourself into circles, here!  
GG: i dont know what is going to happen, though.  
GG: just  
GG: just keep an eye on him!!  
GG: ugh, i dont know how to explain it  
GG: but something bad is definitely going to happen if you are not careful enough.  
TG: how do i be careful  
TG: cmon jade we both know i have the mindset of a damn toddler at this point  
TG: aint exactly the picture perfect resemblance of some grade-A student at this point i thought you knew that part too  
TG: hell karkat sure dow

  
Karkat jabs your side and you hiss, sending him a side-glare. He gives you this look that obviously reads, "stop talking to that bitch and pay attention to me", but since you're a total asshole to the vast majority of your friends, you pointedly decide not to do that and instead turn your full attention back to the conversation at hand; also known as, the conversation with Jade that you were currently having. Your laptop made a few overly obnoxious pinging noises as Jade bombarded you with slews of green-tinted text. You can almost imagine Jade's fingers tapping away on her keyboard like it would kill her if she stopped typing as fast as she could for even a second. The notifications just keep on coming, and it's almost laughable.

As in, you would laugh if her next messages didn't hold such a different undertone in them. You have a hard time understanding what she's truly trying to get across, but you know that it's a point you don't really think you'd like to think about.

GG: haha, what?  
GG: no, no, no.  
GG: what??  
GG: dave??  
GG: dave are you there???  
GG: is bro home??  
GG: tell bro about it when he gets home!  
GG: you dont have the mindset of a toddler, you just said a bad word.  
GG: lots of toddlers don't say bad words.  
TG: plenty of toddlers say bad words.  
TG: there was this toddler that used to live in the apartment across from ours right  
TG: and he swore like a sailor high off his rocker and back from the moon for the first time in years i mean it was intense  
TG: there was just SO MUCH  
TG: at EVERY MINUTE  
TG: i think that they moved out because of all of the noise complaints they got.

"Dave, I swear to the heavy as fuck man upstairs, if you're going to ignore me this whole time, I'll just leave. I will leave and you will never see these tanned-ass fingers ever again in the entirety of your miserable, measly life, even as I thrust them up pompously in the air for yet another fuck you that will literally translate into the only thing putting meaning in your poor little life." Karkat seems to be satisfied with that poorly constructed insult he had concocted within a matter of seconds, and shuffles himself backwards enough to press his back against the back of the couch. His arms cross over his chest as if he's never been more exasperated, and you find now a perfect time to go ahead and butt into his little pompous bubble.

"Honestly, I thought you were insinuating you'd love to shove your fingers up my ass," you say, drumming your fingers on the "L" "K" "J" and "N" letter keys. It creates a nice tapping sound, which goes well with your inability to concentrate well enough to actually type anything out. It's a fine alternative, really. "Which, I mean, would be totally like you, since you're gay,'n all."

"I'm not gay, goddammit!" Karkat shouts, tossing his hands out of his angry-crisscross across his chest, and instead up into the air. He stands up from the couch, needlessly pissed off. You're needlessly amused.

"Right, right. Bisexual. There's a difference there, huh."

"There is a difference! A huge difference! A monumental fucking difference! You, of all people, should know of this difference!" Karkat is practically fuming by now, looking ready to tear out the hair of anyone who crosses his path. Which isn't too odd, considering that it's pretty much his constant mode of defense. Oh, someone stole his lunch money? Tear their hair out. Someone tipped off the teachers that he was the one who spray painted "FUCK THESE INCANDESCENT HORSES" on the side of the school? Tear their hair out. His brother is blabbing at him about something probably religious? Tear his own hair out.

You have to admire his brother's ability to talk and talk and talk without stopping to take a breath in between sentences, though. You swear, sometimes, it's like he doesn't have to breathe because he's dead, or something. Actually, that's kind of upsetting to think about. Backtrack, Dave. Backtrack.

"I cannot believe that you don't understand the difference between those two immensely different things! How do you even survive? How are you legitimately alive right now?" Since Karkat is currently proceeding with a one-sided argumentative conniption fit, you push your gaze away from your friend and instead begin to read the messages Jade had sent since Karkat interrupted your nice stream of statements. It isn't too many, actually, which both surprises you, and doesn't. It surprises you, because you thought Jade would have more to say, and doesn't, because the accommodating "ping"s were few and far apart.

GG: okay, okay, sooo  
GG: toddlers sometimes say bad words. but that does not mean that they always say bad words! or that your toddler in your apartment was the perfect example of all toddlers.....  
GG: yknow??  
GG: .......  
GG: daaaaave.  
TG: sorry karkats having a conniption fit  
GG: oooh i see.  
GG: are you two still together??  
GG: i forgot to check in on that, sorry!!!!  
TG: what

What.

TG: what  
TG: no  
TG: we were never together when was that a thing  
GG: i dunno!  
GG: i thought you started dating, like, four years ago.  
GG: or....  
GG: maaaybe it was just a dream?????  
GG: ugh! i can never tell!!! >:(  
TG: chill  
TG: im sure it was just a dream though  
TG: pretty sure karks hates me way too much to even consider dating me anyway  
TG: have you seen the way he gets so worked up around me  
TG: its funny  
GG: yeah, but, havent you ever heard of how boys tell people they like them?  
GG: they get all angry and mean!  
TG: i think youre forgetting the fact that i too am a boy and that i do not do that nor have i ever heard of anyone doing that ever  
TG: unless im weird  
TG: am i weird  
GG: heehee!  
GG: weird would be an understatement for you, coolkid!!  
TG: omg  
TG: okay i gotta calm karkat the fuck down  
TG: brb

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 15:55 --

 

"You asshole!" Karkat storms over from where he had ended up, across the living room and almost to the kitchen. You don't remember him pacing, like, at all, but whatever. You weren't really looking at him in the first place. He points erratically towards your laptop as you set it on the coffee table, and stand up to face him properly. You're taller than him, and it's pretty amusing when Karkat flushes like he forgot you had a good few inches on him. "You weren't even listening to me, were you?"

"I mean, yeah, I was listening," you respond, shrugging your shoulders. He narrows his eyes and shrugs his own, sharp and mocking, back at you, as if you're going to be offended by his decision to shrug his shoulders as hard and as high as he can in your general direction. "But I was mostly talking to Jade. I just knew that you were having a spaz attack. Anyone within a mile's radius would be able to figure out what you were talking about."

"Fuck off!"

"Chill out, Karkat, you won't get anywhere if you keep flapping about like a toucan with half a mind to understand its own thoughts." You tilt your head and quirk a brow upwards as you say this, the right corner of your mouth edging up and into some form of smirk. You keep it from growing too noticeable, however, as too much of a smirk would be terrible for Karkat's currently fragile psyche. Like that time someone tossed a bucket and it smacked him in the face, and he proceeded to have a mental breakdown.

Actually, you can understand why Karkat had a mental breakdown. It was a metal bucket and he had a fucking fear of them. Didn't make it any less funny, though.

You're a terrible human being, and goddamn proud of that.

"I hate you," Karkat spits out his words. "I hate you with the passion of five thousand fiercely burning suns."

"I got that much."

"And I hate you so much that I could just- just-"

"Just what?"

"Just-"

"Dude, just spit it out-" You hardly have time to finish the final word in your sentence, before Karkat is bringing his right hand up and over, across your face to slap you with, what you can only assume is, the passion of five thousand fiercely burning suns. It stings like a bitch, too, holy shit. Who knew Karkat had so much manpower tucked into a single hand? He's literally a little ball of rage, ouch.

You reach up to nurse your stinging (and probably red) cheek, but Karkat beats you to it, grabs your still hurting face in your hands, tugs you foreword, and kisses you right on the lips.

Holy shit.

At first your eyes went wide, but you soon shut them when you noticed Karkat's own eyes were shut tightly. He seemed to be putting all of his anger into this one kiss, which translated into some fucked up version of passion. You, being the romantic son of a bitch you are, decided you couldn't let that fine kiss go to waste, and kissed back as well as you could. It was like Karkat was trying to force your faces into a really powerful bro-hug of passion. Except, the really powerful bro-hug of passion turned into a kiss of passion, with both of your lips on each other's, and...

It was actually really nice.

Karkat pulls away from the kiss as fast as he possibly can and lets your face go once the door to the apartment opens. Both of your eyes open, and both of your gazes travel over to the entryway in order to greet Bro in a weird stare. There's a few seconds of silence that pass before you notice Bro snicker, keys in one hand and doorknob in the other.

"Oh, don't mind me," says Bro, cheeky as ever, and he slinks into the apartment. Without shutting the door. Bro knows you hate it when he does that. He's a total asshole. With Bro in the kitchen and Karkat standing, stock still, like he was just caught in the act by his parents- um. Actually, that's pretty accurate. Figure of speech defeated. You step over to the door without too much hesitation, and shut it. You glance over to Karkat when he makes some sort of enraged squeaking noise, and in a fit of rage, he stomps over, grabs his backpack, forces the door open, and leaves.

Without shutting the fucking door.

Needless to say, you repeat your previous action of shutting the door behind Karkat, and this time, you actually lock it, as well. Karkat's sudden leave in whatever huff he had brought on to himself wasn't something that you were surprised about. You are a bit surprised that he didn't pull out anyone's hair, though. Especially yours. You just hope his new coping tactic isn't the good old "smack and kiss" routine he pulled on you. That was surprising.

"Mind tellin' me what that was about?" Bro calls from the kitchen, and you thunk your forehead against the wood of the front door.

"Ugh."

"I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

"Bro," you say, making your way into the kitchen, where Bro is leaning against the counter and sipping at a cup of coffee. He grunts in response, brow very, very slightly quirked up in a noticeable acknowledgement. You swallow. You feel unjustifiably nervous, as the topic with Jade comes up again in your mind.

You wish you just sent the damn e-mail.

"We need to talk."


	10. The One With The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Have you been seeing them again?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, look, another chapter! :D
> 
> Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has stuck by this story so far. All of the support and kind words are very much appreciated, and writing this for all of you really does make me happy. Thank you again!
> 
> Once again, constructive criticism and feedback is always welcome!
> 
> I hope you enjoy the tenth chapter of "Shots"!

Surprisingly enough (or, unsurprisingly, depending on how you look at it), Bro only grunts in response, swapping the cup to a simple, single handed hold. His free hand, the left one, lifts up to the collar of his shirt to flip part of it down, and run his fingertip smoothly over the seam of the shirt. You've noticed that he does that a lot whenever he has some downtime. While you found it increasingly peculiar, you understood it was simply an odd habit of his, and didn't say anything about it. There are times that you do wonder where he picked that up, though.

A long moment passes, in which both of you just stare at each other with increasing intensity, presumably to continue until one of you breaks the silence with more than a tedious grunt or two. It's like some sort of staring contest, except for the fact that both of you are probably blinking (you say "probably", because this is Bro you're talking about here, you swear he's superhuman sometimes-- a few minutes without blinking wouldn't be enough to surprise you), and it's difficult to perceive whether or not Bro is actually looking at you, because shades tend to get in the way of actually seeing another person's eyes that clearly. And through two pairs of shades? Psh.

You might as well not look at someone's eyes at all at that point.

You sense that the energy is taking a nosedive with its exceedingly long proboscis into one of these pools of "just say something already goddammit", and contemplate going ahead to just state your point now, but you deny yourself the access or right to achieve that goal, which wasn't necessarily much of a goal of yours in the first place. This would be more of a "do this or suffer big consequences" thing, which would stick you smack dab into the arbitrary fields of a game of monkey-in-the-middle to register and contradict results aplenty.

Plus, Bro didn't even technically answer you. He, of all people, should know and understand the importance of verbal responses, rather than vocal cues that he's pretty much constantly so keen on using. Which is fine with you, you don't normally have a problem with grunts and inconsistent other noises that you don't really know the name of. But this time around, you were kind of expecting a real, hard answer of, "Hey man, yeah sure, I'm listening, go ahead". You should have known that you would just get a grunt and be expected to go along with your point.

With a mental crisis averted, you open your mouth to speak, and--

"I'm listenin'."

God fucking dammit, really?

If this isn't ironic, you don't know what is.

"Something bad's gonna happen," you note casually as your traverse across the kitchen floor towards the fridge. You half expect Bro to question you immensely in-depth about this whole "something bad's gonna happen" statement of yours-- which you stated oh-so-coolly, you must add-- but he doesn't. Not right away, at least, and not right as you're working on opening the fridge. Caliborn must be having a bad day or something, considering it's so difficult to open the damn thing.

"Somethin' bad is gonna happen," Bro repeats your sentence. The distinctly loud sipping noise you hear come from behind you just confirms that he's taking another mouthful of coffee into his mouth, and you know he's doing his best to be as obnoxious as possible. Just like him. A good, solid few seconds pass as you can only assume that Bro swallows his mouthful of beverage, and you manage to convince Caliborn, silently, into letting you open the fridge by giving out gentle, repetitive tugs on the door. "And this somethin' bad is...?"

"That's the interesting bit," you huff out and shiver at the chilly air that immediately flows over your face. You narrowly sidestep a falling cookie sheet of shuriken, and marvel at the cacophony of noises that strings together at your feet. There are a lot of them, and the cookie sheet was tied tightly via rope to the fridge door, attached to one of the little shelves on it. You know immediately that this is something that Bro would do. Instead of giving a reaction to Bro behind you, you calmly untie the rope from the door of the fridge and set the cookie sheet onto the counter. The shurikens are something that you work on picking up and setting onto the cookie sheet as you continue your sentence. "I don't actually really know what's going to happen."

"So, somethin' bad is gonna happen." Bro sets down his coffee cup, and his arms cross over his chest as if he's judging you. "But you don't know what the bad thing is, that is going to happen."

"Exactly."

There's a stiff moment of silence that occurs, where the only sound that can be heard by either of you, is the shurikens scraping against the floor as you pick them up. After ten seconds or so, you've begun to get agitated by the irritable ruckus, and are itching for someone to say something, even if it's Calliope or Caliborn, or one of the other ghosts you've been seeing around. Another ten seconds pass, and you glance up to Bro's face for a split second behind your shades. He hasn't moved a muscle. You can definitely tell that he isn't about to say anything. Not right now, at least.

"I mean." You clear your throat, feeling shaky, though your hands are steady as you stand from your crouched position and set the rest of the shurikens on the cookie sheet. "I didn't even really know that something bad was gonna happen, until just before you got home."

Bro is still stiff as he watches you shuffle, awkward, and nudge the fridge door shut with your foot. You're a bit on the stiff side as well, if you're going to be honest.

The way he looks at you is as if he's lost all faith in you, and it's seriously starting to creep you out.

Suddenly, a twitch within the muscles of Bro's face shows itself, and he snaps the thumb and middle finger of his left hand, as if he's just realized something that he'd been trying to succeed in pondering over the last few years. "Oh, _I_ see," he notes, hardly the intonation of any strict sort on the exceedingly loud 'I'. "So, this is just another one of your pranks, then. I gotcha, kid. Honestly, you gotta be slicker 'bout this shit. It's been hardly a few minutes, and I already caught on to your shenanigans."

Bro uncrosses his arms, slips his hand in a hold around the coffee cup he had just set down, and takes another hearty swig of the beverage inside. You have a growing suspicion that it's not coffee in that cup, though you haven't quite figured out what else it could be.

"Gotta step up yer game, Dave."

"No, actually," you respond quickly, almost grunting when your lower back touches the edge of the counter behind you, though you quickly play off your surprise into a casual lean-back, with your arms crossed over your chest, much like Bro's previous stance. "I don't gotta step up any game. If anyone has to step up their game to heighten their skills and freshen up, it's you. Yes, Bro, that's right. You are the one whose game is no longer as on fleek as my eyebrows, which, bitch, are on fleek."

Bro's look isn't even close to amused. You quickly move on.

"Because this isn't a prank, which you've apparently failed to realize. You jumped onto the iceberg too fast and got crushed by the speeding boat that snapped in half. That's what speedy decisions get you, Bro. Untimely demise."

"Yeah, seems pretty damn untimely to me." Bro sets the coffee cup right back down on the counter top beside him. A quick glance inside of the cup and at its contents, allows you to realize that, no, there is, in fact, no coffee whatsoever inside of that coffee cup. Instead, the liquid inside looks a lot like apple juice. You know that Bro doesn't drink apple juice, so unless this is a grand jest and he's simply doing it "for the irony", you have no idea what else it'd be. "Especially considering the Titanic sank damn near one hundred and five years ago. At least use a reference to something that happened recently."

"Okay, okay, I get it, my metaphors and shit are just about as stale as the breakfast cereal in our pantry. Honestly, what's up with that? It's been in there for five years and the only time we ate any of it was in." You don't pause, you stop altogether, and you glance over your shoulder when you feel the bad presence growing strong behind you once again. It's unnerving, sparking sheer terror and panic in your chest. The scariest part is the fact that you know it's there, it's giving you this absolutely horrific feeling of dread, and you know that it's out to get you, but you can't see it, or hear it. It's just there. You know.

"Dave. Snap out of it." You glance over to Bro as he says this, his tone is heavy and demanding, as if he'd been trying to get you to come back to reality for a really long time. Which is actually fairly dumb to think about, because that's false; you'd just gotten briefly distracted by the definitely evil spirit that's been stalking you for the past day. You remember Bro used to use that tone a lot when you were a kid, once the doctors falsely diagnosed you with schizophrenia, because they're closed-minded and are unwilling to accept the fact that people have psychic abilities.

You aren't crazy, you just see ghosts.

Anyway, Bro would use that tone a lot when you were first "diagnosed", and you would openly have conversations with the spirits roaming around the apartment or outside, or anywhere, really, whenever you would go out.

Your head feels wrong; you feel heavy and languid. The spirit is messing with you. You need to get back on track.

"Dave."

"What?" You answer insistently, brows furrowed. You're none too happy with Bro using his "I know what you're doing" tone of voice, even though he doesn't know what you're doing. He just thinks he knows what you're doing, because the doctors fed him lies that he know thinks are the truth. You don't know why he doesn't believe you, you have evidence, you've contacted his goddamn brother from the dead. You feel overly frustrated right now, for no good reason.

You blame the spirit. You also blame being a teenager.

Bro's eyes narrow, which is only evident due to the obvious tightening of the muscles in his face as he looks at you, studies you, examines your every move. Bro is very apt of other's attitudes, he can tell when someone is acting off, when someone is bothered by something, and he is very good at getting the truth out of people. His expression turns from studious to realization in a matter of seconds, and just as you're about to ask him what the heck he's looking at you like that for, he speaks, instead.

"Have you been seeing them again?"

You know what he's talking about. He's referring back to when you were "diagnosed", he's referring back to the countless doctors that he brought you to see in order to get answers, who told him that you were crazy, that you're just going through a phase, that most kids have imaginary friends, that you have schizophrenia; but you don't. Even if you did, it wouldn't make sense. You can interact with the people you see, and they aren't passing figures or evil. Most of them aren't, at least. They're just people. They are people that have died, and have a message that you need to spread, and so you spread it to the best of your ability, and then they cross over.

"Dave."

"No, I haven't been," you answer, reaching over to the fridge door with your right hand to open it. You look inside of it, realize you don't want anything to eat, and brush off the action like it's something simple and casual that you're doing. If you play it off enough, Bro will believe you, and you'll convince him that you aren't seeing "them" (even though you are, you always have been, and you always will). You aren't schizophrenic. You aren't crazy. You're not.

"Look at me when you say that." You don't look at him, you continue looking inside of the fridge, continue searching for the miscellaneous food item that you don't even want in the first place. You shuffle a few things, look at the jar of pickles in the far back, squishing a puppet into the back corner of the fridge. "Dave, look at me."

You don't want to. You really don't want to. He'll see right through you, and he'll make you go back to the doctor and they'll renew your once forgotten diagnosis of schizophrenia and you'll go through another three medications before you can convince him that you don't need them, and that they don't help anyway. You'll go back to being the falsely identified schizophrenic kid and you don't want that hanging over you, you don't want that anywhere near you. You don't want that to follow you into adulthood, when you get a good paying job and find someone to marry, who you'll have to tell about the fact that you're apparently crazy, even though you're not. You're not crazy, you don't have schizophrenia, you don't, god fucking damn it.

"Dave Strider." Bro's voice snips through the air like a large pair of scissors, the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end, your arms prickling. You shut the refrigerator door and turn to look at him, though you're still very unwilling. His left hand lifts up and he removes his shades, collapsing them and clipping them on the collar of his white polo shirt. His eyes are stern, with an expression and light that you haven't seen since you were a kid. His eyebrows twitch down to let you know you're expected to follow suit with the same action.

You do. You take your shades off in a huff of anger, irritable and frustrated at your brother. You don't let go of your shades, nor do you fold or collapse them like Bro did. You're planning on putting them right back on as soon as you possibly can.

"Look me in the eyes and answer me, kid." The tone means business. Means no fucking around. You look him directly in the eyes, and he looks you directly in the eyes. The orange glares expectantly back at you as you wait for the question he wants you to answer, though you already know it. You don't need another hint. He's already spoken it. A moment passes, before Bro re-voices his previous question. "Are you seeing them again?"

"No," you spit the word out. Bro is quick, however, and he can spot a lie. He grunts at you.

"You're lying."

You bristle, tense, run the fingers of your free hand up and down the opposite arm; a nervous habit, something that you rarely do. "I'm not." He notices.

"I knew I shouldn't have let them take you off that medication," huffs Bro, regretful. He lifts the baseball cap off his head with one hand, smooths his hair back with the other, and then replaces the cap. He mumbles something else under his breath, something similarly akin to, "I fucking knew it."

"I don't want to talk about this," you respond. You put your shades back on, but the look Bro shoots you makes you contemplate taking them off. You feel exposed, now that it's back on the table. He's pulling everything back up from the past and shoving it onto the counter tops that you're currently trying to lean away from. The fear you felt previously intensifies, you panic a little more. You're on edge, and you know it, and you're scared that he's going to take you back to the doctor to make you get another medication to keep your "hallucinations" at bay, even though the medicine doesn't work because they aren't hallucinations.

"Of course you don't want to fuckin' talk about this, no one wants to fuckin' talk about it. You're sick, Dave. You need help."

"I don't need _anything_. I'm not fucking _crazy_. You're crazy that you think I'm crazy. I'm a little different, but that doesn't mean I'm a _fucking schizo_."

" _Knock it the fuck off_." Bro isn't shouting, but he's obviously pissed, the overt intonation of the entire sentence is enough proof of that. His eyes are narrowed and he's actually glaring at you, like you've personally offended him by declaring the truth. His mouth twitches downwards, his gaze intensifies before tapering off, and he looks away. He slouches, crossing his right arm over his torso to grip at his left side, while his left hand comes up to pinch the top of the bridge of his nose.

The silence seems to stop time, and you both stand there, silent, for a long time. You watch Bro's breathing slow until it's calm, rather than its previous huffing from his anger. Your left hand grips the counter ledge as you wait.

You wait for him to say what he wants to. What he has to. You know what he's going to say to you. He's going to force you to go to an appointment to get prescribed _something_ so he feels better about _himself_ for not just _fucking standing there when his kid is so obviously out of their mind_.

You shudder, you feel sick, your head throbs.

"Go to your room."

You waste no time. You leave the kitchen, go down the hall, and climb into bed, without brushing your teeth for the night, or eating dinner or taking your shower. You'll do all of that when you wake up. You bury your face into your hands and a shiver runs down your spine, the presence has followed you, you feel it breathing down your neck, but it's gone before you can correctly process it and the warmth that was once itself has now changed into something cold and you feel your face grow warm.

You don't want to go to the doctor. You don't want to. You want to break down, you want to stop time, you just want to keep things from going so fast around you like some sort of dangerous roller coaster that wasn't tested for safety.

You feel sick.

You hate the fact that no one ever believes you.

_"Don't do it, David,"_ Calliope says. You don't see her, but you feel her, and you feel the bed dip down beside you, even though it doesn't. It fucks with your head. Calliope is fucking with your head.

"My name isn't David." You sit up, trail your hands up from your face to comb your fingers into your hair, staring at your lap. Your shades slip from their perch at the bridge of your nose, and they fall into your lap. The flash of a negative colored hand reaching into your lap causes you to recoil. "I'm not going to go to the doctor."

_"That's not what-"_

"Shut up. Shut up. Just leave me alone for once, will you?" You snap. You're about to yell. "This is all your fault, anyway. You're making people think I'm crazy. You're making Bro send me away to mental institutions and you're causing Bro to make me take medications and go to therapists, you're making all of this happen. It's you, it's all you."

It's low of you, to blame a ghost for everything. It's low. But it makes you feel better to get the anger off your chest like this. Everything turns blue and you shut your eyes, a fizzy bubbly feeling on your shoulder and around your body cascades over your mind and you let yourself sink into your own consciousness, for just a moment. Just enough to calm yourself down, so you aren't on the verge of shouting at Calliope, or yourself, or nothing in particular.

You don't need anymore noise complaints.

_"I know that this is a terrible thing for you to go through, David."_

You don't bother correcting her. 

You lay back down. Calliope leaves and doesn't come back for the rest of the night.


End file.
